Why is the Force Connecting Us, You and I?
by boursin
Summary: Why, indeed, Kylo Ren. Why, indeed. A continuation of things after The Last Jedi, in first person from Rey's point of view.
1. Force Bond A

-I-

The thing I didn't want to admit was that I wanted to see Ben Solo again.

Fortunately for me, this wasn't something I had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It wasn't possible, anyway, even if maybe, perhaps, we _could_ have connected somehow through our force bond.

Sure, sometimes I felt him in my peripherals, or I thought I did. I tried to ignore him when that happened, partly due to denial, convincing myself that it was my imagination, and partly due to fear, afraid that if I were to give it my full attention then it _would_ be real, and then I'd have to deal with it. The thing was, I didn't want to deal with it, with _him_ , because he and it and _everything_ was just so complicated, and I had enough to deal with without him in my mind.

I suppose it was silly to call him "Ben Solo", anyway, but in my stubbornness, I continued to do so, if only in my mind. Everyone else called him "Kylo Ren". Except his mother, whom I loved.

It was a blasted shame about the galactic radiation that got Leia Organa. After everything she did and everything she was capable of, she couldn't shake what two unshielded minutes in space can do to a person. Even the Force couldn't save her. At least we got her for another year; another year and a half if you count the time she was confined to the medical frigate. She hated that medical frigate, and she let us all know it, yet she still did everything she could to try to survive the radiation poisoning, hopeful to the end.

The end was an interesting time. I sat with her as often as I could, because it was at this time that she opened the wellspring of what she wanted me to know, what she wanted the galaxy to know, and especially what she wanted Ben Solo to know.

I think she knew, somehow, that I would talk to Ben again. I think, even though I never told her, that she knew to some extent of my accidental relationship with her son, that the Force had brought us together, that, somehow, he and I were fated to mix in strange ways. She said as much, near the end, when she was losing her grip on the iron general façade she'd held up for decades. At the end, he was nearly all she wanted to talk about. I obliged her, not only for her sake, but for mine. I felt as if I needed to talk about him, but I had never been able to do so, not with anyone. Until Leia.

"There is still light in him, I know it," I told her, feeling every word I said.

"I know," said Leia, succinct.

"I've seen it," I said, saying it as much for my own sake as for hers.

"Good," she said, "So have I."

It was comforting to know someone else knew him and had seen what I had seen in Kylo Ren. As I sat by her bedside, or her chairside, or her tableside, I grew to know Ben Solo in a different dimension than I had previous. I knew his childhood. I knew stories of his youth that made me laugh and others that made me cry. I knew the very feelings of apprehension mixed with joy and hope that Ben gave his mother as his life began. I knew her sorrow, a sharp, stretching pain that had lingered for years on end, rising and falling like a galactic tide. I felt a sorrow, too, for her and her lost son, for him and his lost mother, and my own sorrow at watching this tragedy unfold in real time, and for the impending loss of Leia in my life. I had already lost Ben's father, and his uncle… and then as his mother was on the cusp of death I wondered how it all would strike Ben. I wondered if he felt it, too.

I would soon know well enough what he felt, for when Leia died his presence in my peripherals was both palpable and raw. Perhaps it was my own unwillingness to ignore him… not then, I couldn't ignore him then, not just as she'd died. That I happened to be there at the right moment was perhaps the will of the Force.

She'd passed away peacefully in her room on the medical frigate, and I was the only one there. I felt it, in the Force, her passing. I wondered at it.

I felt him before I saw him. I always felt him before I saw him. Before, I'd refused to look at him, but I couldn't anymore. The intensity that roiled out from him through the Force was unignorable. I wouldn't have ignored him, anyway. His mother had just died. I turned to look at him.

He was a raven, becloaked and brooding upon a fiercely minimalistic First Order chair in blackness, his pale moon of a face smoothed beneath a façade of control. Despite his control, there were signs of wear. He looked tired. His eyes were rimmed with red. He saw me look at him and it disarmed him, forming cracks in his veneer. I knew he was stricken with grief.

"Ben," I said.

I watched him draw a breath and let it out, all while gazing at me.

"Rey," he replied, as if it were a shorthand greeting.

I glanced at his mother, then back at him.

"I'm… sorry," I offered, knowing it wasn't enough.

He looked away.

"Ben," I insisted.

"What?" he asked, his temper short.

I thought about the stories Leia had told me about Ben as a child, and it made me sad. It made me grieve for Ben Solo, the innocent.

I stood up and he glanced up at me from where he sat, wary of my movement.

"She loved you," I said.

He ignored me, turning aside.

"She talked of almost nothing but you towards the end," I said.

"I cannot believe you," he said.

"It's true," I said, and I moved closer to him.

"What do you want?" he asked, casting a bitter gaze up at me.

How tightly his shell was wound about him! I knew, however, because I could feel; he suffered. I wondered how much he'd suffered in these past eighteen months. It pressed outward, out of him, in waves of the Force.

I reached out with the intent to touch his shoulder, but he drew back.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"Shut up," I said, and I touched him, and his breath caught at once.

I felt the tactile feel of his tunic beneath my hand, quilted, embroidered with threads of gold, and underneath, the solid shoulder, the beginnings of blade and clavicle, the tightening of anxiety and tendon, and under deeper still, the essence of _him_. His breath and heartbeat pulsed through my fingers and the Force wound through us, mixing, blending, rewarding, pleased.

"Ben," I heard myself say, just above a whisper.

He glanced at my hand and I felt his breath puff against my skin. Then, he looked up at me. The tightness of his countenance released, and he surrendered, perhaps beguiled by the Force. Gone was the bitter glass from his eyes. His gaze was open, completely open.

"I'm sorry," I said again, this time to Ben Solo, who was listening, and I felt at once the crushing weight of Leia Organa being gone from my life and the Resistance. Tears stung at my eyes and I turned my head aside.

Though I was unable to see through my momentary tears, I felt his hand, his rough, reaching, tender hand over mine, against mine, grasping mine, roughly, clumsily, trying to communicate but numb and unfamiliar with this sort of use.

Spilling down over my cheeks, my tears were relieved, and my sight returned. At once I looked to Ben, whose face had a telling trail of wet, and a trembling caution, an unsure, jagged composure held together by the barest strings.

I claimed the last two steps between us and embraced him, enveloping him with a nurturing I wasn't sure I possessed until it came over me, crushing his forehead to my sternum, holding his shoulders, pushing a hand, my fingers, into his hair.

He stiffened at first, and then something broke inside of him. His arms twisted around my waist and he held me, falling against me like a great weight finally released, his shoulders bowed in defeat.

I heard the smallest of noises escape him, yet that sound spoke volumes of his grief. My hands fell through and through his hair, the plainest of comfort-strokes, but it was the best I knew how to do.

Our state was one of mutual cease-fire in the face of shared sorrow.

It was only after the passing of some minutes that I began to wonder how we could physically manifest to each other with such entirety. It seemed effortless for us both, yet merely a projection of similar proportions was enough to kill Luke Skywalker.

Ben seemed hesitant to face me, to go to the in-between space of neither adversaries nor embracing. It did, perhaps, feel awkward. I brushed his hair from his face and attempted to draw back, and he released me some, but with regret coursing through his arms and hands. I gently coaxed his chin upward, so I could meet his gaze. His gaze came to mine in a jagged line, not straight, not directly, not until the last moment.

"You…" he said, and I sensed and felt and heard bitterness rush back into him, held at bay by our embrace, coloring him sharp and cruel, "You cut me off eighteen months ago."

"You chose to stay with the First Order," I said, perhaps equally cruel, but feeling justified.

"I did nothing of the sort," he said, his voice low and resentful.

I couldn't believe he'd say that, as untrue as it was.

"That is exactly what you did," I said.

He stood at once, and his disagreement was clear in his stance, in how he faced me. It was the same as when we fought through the Force for his, my, _our_ lightsaber. The one we'd broken in two. The one I cobbled back together into a two-edged staff.

"It is you who made a choice that day," he seethed. " _You_ chose to stay with the Resistance. I wanted to end all this, but you refused."

"How is it you believe you could have ended all this?" I asked, amazed at his delusion, and waving a hand in the direction of the many wars amongst our stars.

"We could have done _anything_ ," he said, his glare boring a hole through the blind optimism in his words.

I stared at him.

Unable to form a response, I turned away, shaking my head in disbelief.

"You know it to be true," he said.

"I do not," I said, sharp, fixing him with a gaze, trying to pretend something wasn't nagging at me, that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to his words. Or a lot of truth. It was too exciting of a prospect for me to handle at the time. I was afraid, when it came right down to it, afraid I would believe him and then be proven wrong. I couldn't handle the loss.

He merely returned my gaze then, and silently reclined upon his chair, as if ceding the day, but only the day. I knew he would be back, and with a vengeance, trying to convince me of things of which I wasn't ready to be convinced. I didn't want him to go. I wondered if the force-bond would end, I wondered when it would end, I felt a prickling across the nape of my neck in anxiety as I realized I didn't want it to end, I didn't want him to go.

I drew a small breath to speak.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked him. It was almost conversational, and that seemed wrong, but I wanted him to stay.

He glanced aside as if thinking how to respond.

"Mourn, I suppose," he replied, his eyes distant, glancing at things I couldn't see. Parts of the First Order's headquarters, I assumed. Then he added, "Alone."

He didn't look embittered by the prospect; he seemed accustomed to it. My heart wanted to break at once, and he must have sensed it because his eyes shifted, tight, to me, almost like a warning, but I ignored his glance.

"Ben," I said, as I kept saying, and I came near him again. "You're not alone."

"I have been," he replied.

Then I felt guilt. I'd left him alone, after we'd told each other neither of us would be alone anymore. Yet, indignance rose in me, sharp, sudden, raw.

"What should I have done after you tried to murder everyone I love?" I demanded.

He stood again, forcing me to look up at him.

"You saved the Resistance," he said to me.

"Yes, I did," I replied.

"By doing so, you saved this war," he said. "Now, because of you, it continues."

I found myself blinking, trying to think through what he'd said.

His gaze turned a little wry.

"Was it worth it?" he asked, his voice soft, yet intent. "Was it worth everyone who will die in the future as a result? Is this what you envisioned?"

I looked away from him, confused by his questioning, not sure what he was trying to get at.

"Rey," he said, his voice still soft, drawing me back into his gaze.

"What?" I asked, though my voice sounded softer than I'd intended.

He stepped closer, and I could smell him, and his scent was sharp and clean and heady. Like machinery and leather and warmth and cold all together in an unstable alliance. I remembered it from the throne room of Snoke, and the scent brought back more of my senses from that time.

"Do you believe me that I wanted to end all of this?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said, "You've never lied to me."

"Then why did you go?" he asked.

"Because I couldn't let them die," I replied, almost pleading that he understand. "How could I? How could I have lived with myself if I had?"

I felt tears sting my eyes at the impossibility of the situation.

He glanced over my face and looked miserable.

"There's nothing else I could have done," I said, as a tear spilled down my cheek. "As far as I'm concerned, there was no choice to be made."

He watched the tear fall from my chin.

"But you had the power to stop it," I accused, threatened by more tears.

"I did not," he said.

"Why not?" I said, as my vision blurred in grief.

"I cannot stop a juggernaut like the First Order alone," his voice said.

I covered my face with my hands. There was silence, a waiting, moments pressed into long strands of time, and then I felt his hand touch me on the wrist, light, scarce, hesitant and unsure.

I was so relieved by his touch, I forgot to be angry. My hands fell away from my face as he claimed my wrist, grasping it.

"Don't go," I said, nonsensically.

"How can I decide that?" he asked, reclaiming my gaze, as well.

"I… just don't want you to," I said.

"I don't want to, either," he replied.

"Ben," I breathed.

He pulled me at once, by the wrist, into his arms, and I was crushed into his steely machinery, his nuclear fission, his cold-hot juxtapose.

Resist, I did not.

It could be said, possibly, that I melted like a snowball in the Jakku sun, or that I fell apart like matter in a Death Star, or that my mind left me and I became one with the Force that was Us.

There was nothing, despite our impossible circumstances, that could have felt better in that moment than being clung to, endeared to, desperate for, and wholly embraced by Ben Solo or Kylo Ren or both or the oscillation between the two. I clung back, as if an immense gravity had thrown us together and our only relief could be found in surrender.

How darkly humorous it was that the Force chose then to end our contact. He faded from my arms and the lack of him was acute. It bordered on physical pain. I wanted him back. _I wanted him back._

I stood for long moments, my shattered breaths the only sound, staring at the wall behind where he once stood, yet never stood, lightyears away.

I was alone, and nearby, Leia Organa was dead.

The door opened.

It was Poe Dameron, the shameless flirt.

There was no flirt in him now, for he saw my wrecked state and he saw General Organa, motionless on her bed.

"Oh, no," said Poe, his face a block of compassion.

I sniffed and pushed a tear from my cheek, moving towards Leia's body.

"She passed away a few minutes ago," I said.

"Oh, no," breathed Poe, sorry, sad, his hand outstretched to touch her unfeeling arm, his head falling to bow.

He knows how to grieve properly, was what I thought in that moment, wondering if I would ever manage to know how to do anything properly.

We stayed there for long minutes, silent sentinels grieving her passing, as stars passed above, unaware of our microscopic details.

-o-


	2. Force Bond B

-II-

The next day, I once again felt him before I saw him.

"How can we control this?" I heard his voice say behind me.

Turning, I saw him standing, submerged in an immense black cloak which flowed out from him in all directions. So elaborate was his cloak that I had to ignore his question and ask mine instead.

"What are you doing?" I asked, glancing over him.

"Ceremonial attire," he said, as if that were normal.

"You look… uncomfortable," I said, fighting a tiny smile that threatened to show itself.

He might have shrugged one shoulder. I couldn't tell. It didn't seem to matter to him, in fact, it almost seemed vaguely tiresome and rote to have to dress so elaborately.

"Is something happening?" I asked.

"Nothing unusual," he said.

"But what is it?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

His glance flashed at me, and he said: "We've brought another system under our empire, and I am to be presented to the people."

I glanced over him since what he was saying and how he was saying it felt strange, somehow.

"You mean you've conquered another people, forcing them to become your subjects," I said with a hint of seethe.

"No," he said immediately, "that isn't what I said, nor is it what I meant."

He watched me with a patience I didn't expect. After a moment he drew a breath.

"They joined us willingly," he clarified.

I stared at him. His gaze tinged with amusement.

"Is that surprising to you?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said, for lack of anything better to say.

"Is it also surprising to you that more people find life better under the rule of the First Order than not?" he asked.

I glanced away.

"It looks as if it is," he said.

"I don't believe you," I said.

"When have I lied to you?" he asked me, and I had to look at him.

He stood still, not having moved at all since the beginning of our bond. I crossed the space between us at once, coming close enough for his cloak to brush my legs as I looked up at him. I could see I'd invaded his personal space; I'd made him imbalanced, if only temporarily.

"Do you expect me to believe the Supreme Leader who lost his mind on the battlefield at Crait is now nothing but the very model of benevolent rule in the galaxy?" I asked.

He recovered himself and I felt his old rage creep in.

"I had my reasons on Crait," he said, keeping everything close to the chest, as usual.

"Tell me what they were," I demanded.

His eyes travelled over my face.

"No," he said, but gently, strangely.

My gaze fell to his mouth of its own accord, waiting for more words, more explanation, but nothing more came. When I looked to his eyes again, they were soft, and filled with a longing I'd only seen once.

My breath caught.

"Rey," he said, breathed, perfectly balanced like a counterpoint to my gasp.

I looked down over him, over his ceremonial body, so heavily shrouded in the trappings of royalty. Sometimes he felt so different, so _opposite_ from me that I felt unsure exactly _what_ he was.

He had still not moved at all. He was like a statue, nothing but a pale moon face above a gilded black frame. He seemed resigned, somehow.

"I wonder how long this connection will last," I said.

"Forever, perhaps," he replied.

I blinked at him.

"Oh," he said, realizing something. "You mean this single instance."

I hadn't yet, however, considered the fact that our strange bond might last forever between us.

"Why would it?" I asked, then clarifying: "Last forever, I mean?"

"Why wouldn't it?" he asked.

"Perhaps we can sever it," I said, thinking of solutions.

Something flashed in his eyes.

"Do you want to?" he asked.

I almost said _Why wouldn't I?_ but I realized I would have to argue with my own question. There was something in it that satisfied me, that brought an end to the loneliness that I'd lived with my whole life. Even now I still felt loneliness, even with friends, and with people who needed me… _how did I still feel loneliness?_ I looked back up at him for answers.

Whenever I looked at him I always felt sad. He was like a puzzle piece that could have fit perfectly, but stubbornly refused to do so. Sometimes I felt as if the way he looked at me was so soft, so gentle, and so honestly curious, that I couldn't get enough of it. I wanted him to always look at me that way. Until I found out more about our bond, and until I found out more about _him_ , I didn't want to sever the bond. I wasn't even close to wanting to sever it. Regardless, I wasn't sure I, or we, could.

I glanced down, not wanting to tell too much with my reply.

"Not yet," I said carefully.

He moved, I sensed it in my peripherals. I felt his cloak shift around my legs, and I felt the increased warmth of his closer proximity. His scent fell across me.

"When is the funeral?" was what he asked.

"Tomorrow," I replied, and then I glanced up to him. "Will you come?"

"Who's to say?" he asked, unable to control the whims of the Force.

"Do you want to?" I asked, my voice smaller.

He looked down on me a moment.

"I do," he replied, but it was tight, clipped, as if his emotions were being restrained.

I was glad, anyway.

"How much longer do you have before you have to go be… presented?" I asked, glancing over his shoulder at whomever might fetch him for his speech, or royal waving, or whatever it was presentations entailed.

"Probably half of an hour," he said, though his eyes never left me.

"Do you like these formal occasions?" I asked him, feeling curious.

"They're necessary," he replied, with something akin to a shrug beneath his heavy robes. "I neither like them nor dislike them."

His world was nothing like mine.

"How strange," I remarked.

"It isn't strange," he said.

"But it is," I said. "We do nothing like that."

"Yes," he said, glancing down over me, "the Resistance is poorly run."

"I beg your pardon," I said.

"Do you wonder why planets and systems are willingly joining the First Order?" he asked me. "Why they are willingly turning away from the Resistance?"

"They are not," I objected.

"They are," he replied.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said. "The reports we get are-,"

"Fabricated," he said.

"Impossible!" I said.

"I will not argue with you whether or not something that we both know is within the realm of possibility is 'impossible'," he said.

"And it's also possible that _your_ reports aren't accurate, either!" I replied.

"That is, indeed, possible," he admitted. "However, I think it would be extremely difficult to fabricate an entire planet's welcome."

I looked over his face.

"That's true," I said, but then held up a finger, "But."

"Yes?" he inquired.

"I have also seen Resistance planets wholly welcome _us_ ," I said.

He studied me for a moment.

"I wonder," he began, and then his weight shifted; I felt the cloak brush against my legs, the fabric, thick, solid, painstakingly woven, touched my hand. "Have you seen those planets again? After some time has passed? After the grim reality of the Resistance has set in?"

My eyes fell away from him as I realized I hadn't been back to any except the main planets on which the Resistance was headquartered. I shook my head.

"That doesn't mean-," I started.

"No, it doesn't," he said. "Of course, anything is in the realm of possibility."

"Stop trying to make me doubt my cause," I said.

"Isn't this what we do?" he asked me, and I could almost hear something akin to humor in his voice.

"It shouldn't be what we do," I said, perhaps a tinge petulant, as I pinched the fabric of his cloak between my fingers.

"What should we do?" he asked me.

I glanced up at him and found him gazing at me with a soft intensity. My face started to feel warm, and I looked away.

"We should get along," I said.

"How can we do that?" he asked.

"We have to agree on something, first," I said, hazarding a glance at him again.

"What would you like to agree on?" he asked.

"Everything," I replied.

"Impossible," he rejoined.

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

"Never," he admitted.

I almost, nearly huffed a laugh, but I didn't.

"But you must admit that's a high bar to set," he said, "considering our track record."

He almost seemed comfortable talking to me, just now, even in his dense royal trappings. I wondered at it, while trying to preserve it, like watching a fragile bubble and trying to keep it from popping.

"We can start with one," I said. "One thing."

"Very well," he said. "Upon what shall we agree?"

I smiled at him a little.

"That your cloak is ridiculous," I said.

"These?" he said, surprised. "But these are my formal imperial robes. What's ridiculous about them?"

"They're just so," I began, and I brought my hands up between us to gesture, but as it was, we were standing so close my hands came to rest on the embroidery over his chest. "So… _much_?"

He was mild beneath my touch. He neither moved into it nor dissuaded it.

"Like I said," he replied, "they are necessary."

"Aren't you the Supreme Leader?" I asked. "Can't you proclaim your official costume be more modest?"

"I could," he said, "but, Rey…"

The way he said my name made me involuntarily swallow.

"Do you not yet know that the people adore pageantry?" he asked, sincere.

"Some people, perhaps," I said, resistant to the end.

"It is common," he informed me.

"Where even _are_ your hands?" I demanded, glancing over the rich folds.

"Where they always are," he replied.

At once, his hands, gloved in black leather, appeared from sleeves or slits or undefined openings which I had not previously detected, and covered my own upon his chest.

I found my breath had left me, for he was gentle.

I knew he was gazing at me; that was what he always did, but I had trouble in lifting my gaze to meet his.

"Rey," I heard him say.

"Yes?" I responded, my voice coming out fainter than I'd expected. I watched his hands over mine and the embroidery which expanded in intricate designs across his chest.

"It doesn't appear that we can agree on that subject," he said, his voice soft, belying the humor in his words.

I did laugh then, gently, both at what he'd said, and at the ridiculous nature of our incessantly irreconcilable differences.

I looked up at him and he was drinking in the smile on my face; he seemed mesmerized by it. I wondered how often he saw smiles directed at him, and I concluded that it probably wasn't very often. His hands clenched mine.

"Let's find something else," I said to him, still smiling.

He looked willing to try anything at all.

"You pick this time," I offered.

He blinked, surprised, and then suddenly considering. As he thought, he caressed my hands with his thumbs, and I wondered how such acute familiarity was both so easy for us and at the same time so strange and thrilling.

"Ah, yes," he said, coming to a conclusion. "My imperial robes."

"We've just been through this!" I objected in disbelief.

"Yes, we have," he said, "But."

"But," I echoed, waiting for more.

"Can we agree that they are well made?" he asked me.

I laughed.

When I came back to myself, I saw a ghost of a smile had graced his face, and I found I wanted more.

With a reproving glance up at him, as he held my hands against him and watched me expectantly, I replied, "Yes, I suppose we can."

He exhaled with relief, as if he'd been holding his breath. He lifted one finger from ours, intertwined.

"There's one," he said.

"One is a beginning," I said.

"A start," he said.

"I suppose all roads begin with a first step," I said.

"Will it be a long road, do you think?" he asked me.

"I wonder," I replied, thoughtful.

He paused, glancing over my face, his hands tender against mine.

"I wonder, too," he said, his voice soft.

I suddenly wanted to touch his face, his hair.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back to me.

"Rey," he said, "I must… well, if our bond doesn't end beforehand… I have to ignore you now."

"Is it time?" I asked.

He nodded, and then he stopped my heart when he brought my hand to his lips. He seemed to have stopped his own, too. I don't think he'd meant to do it, I think he'd done it without thinking beforehand, for he seemed as breathless and surprised as I as he let my hands fall free.

We held eye contact between us for as long as we could, until he was forced to turn and respond to someone who had come into his room.

I watched him go, though he didn't "go" from my perspective. Through the bond I went with him, whether I moved or not. I could hear his words, but not those of anyone else. From time to time he glanced my way, and I felt as if I were snatching at crumbs, catching his gaze and holding it, feeling the Force between us in every instance. I was absorbed by it. I wanted his eyes on me, not anyone else.

I saw his gaze go long, as if he were looking over something at a distance, and the light changed, and his hair moved in the wind, and he faded from me. He must have reached his presentation.

I watched where he had been in my sight for longer than would be normal. Then again, nothing about this was normal in any way, so how could one gauge normalcy? I let the echo of his warmth and scent and touch linger, however, for some minutes.

After a while I left, pondering the things he'd said.

Was he manipulating me?

Was he lying about the Resistance?

Or, instead, was he simply uninformed?

Worse yet, was _I_ uninformed?

What was true, and how could I find out?

I found Poe Dameron in the Resistance war room, just finishing a planning meeting with some of his generals. He seemed pleased to see me.

"Morning, gorgeous," he said with his usual winning smile.

"Good morning," I said, ignoring his flattery as I always did. "How's the Resistance, today?"

"Wonderful," he said. "What can I help you with?"

"It's going wonderfully?" I asked.

He smiled at me.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" he replied, always easy, always relaxed. I rarely saw him upset, though he was capable of intense focus.

"Yes, right… thanks," I said, "I was wondering…,"

"Hm?" he inquired as he checked the data on a nearby screen.

"If I could see some maps of the reach we've acquired so far in the Resistance?" I asked.

He turned to look at me with more focus than before.

"Sure," he said, and then: "Why do you need that?"

"Just trying to keep informed," I replied with a smile.

He glanced over me and then let out a chuckle.

"I'll send it over tonight to your comms," he said.

"Thanks," I said.

"Or I could bring it to you and explain it to you," he offered, "… maybe over dinner?"

I gave him side-eye and he put on his charming smile.

"I'm afraid I'm going to be busy with the recruits tonight," I said.

"Surely not," he countered.

"Sadly, yes," I insisted.

We both knew I wasn't going to be busy with recruits.

"Teaching the ways of the Force isn't a simple task," I added.

His charming smile faded.

"Ah," he said, "Yes… _the Force_."

The Force; the thing he'd never understand. Not like I did. Nor like… I stopped my mind right away.

"Well," he said, "I suppose I'll send the file to you, then."

He seemed to lose interest and went back to checking the data on the screen.

"Okay," I said, "See you later."

"Sure," he said distractedly.

I left Poe and walked out into the bright, brilliant light of day. Outside of the war room, on the fields surrounding the Resistance headquarters, were soldiers and droids and great machines and transports and ships and the bustle of training and preparations for war. There were always preparations for war. War continued in an unending round. We never knew when it would strike, but we always knew it would. Sometimes we did the striking, but even then, it was unpredictable.

I thought about Ben and the light I watched fall over him at the end of our connection and wondered where he was.

It was incredible how the Resistance didn't stop for more than a few hours after General Organa's death. I suppose they'd moved on a long time ago, once she became too weak to lead anymore. Now her death was just a formality everyone had been waiting to get through. At least she'd have a funeral tomorrow, and a proper good-bye. Not everyone got that.

The possibility of connecting with Ben through the Force at any time was disconcerting. I never knew when it would happen. I supposed I could always ignore him, but now I didn't want to. I wanted to talk to him, to find out why he did the things he did, and I felt… _comfortable_ with him in a way I didn't feel with anyone else. Yet, he, himself, was problematic in so many ways. It dug at me all the time, the desire to understand his actions.

I gazed out towards the distant mountains on the horizon until I heard a voice call me from behind. Turning, I saw one of the Force-sensitives I'd been training standing with a staff in his hand.

"Are we practicing today, Master Rey?" he asked.

I smiled at him.

"Yes," I replied. "We are."

-o_o-


	3. Force Bond C

-III-

The funeral of General Leia Organa was held with as much pageantry as could be mustered by the Resistance and was held within a hastily-converted hangar space to fit everyone who wanted to attend. No one wore ceremonial robes as elaborate as Kylo Ren's, except perhaps for Leia.

They'd put flowers in her hair, just like they said had been in her mother's. It was beautiful and fascinating, considering the trouble Leia had experienced due to her parentage in the past. I suppose Padme Amidala was always considered to be a respectable figure, despite Anakin Skywalker.

Poe gave a stirring speech. I suppose it was meant to rouse the motivation of the Resistance and to bring glory to the cause by highlighting all that Leia had sacrificed for them, and all she had accomplished. She had truly accomplished great things.

Something nagged at me, though.

Why didn't the wars ever end?

Why did they seem to be just as constant as they'd always been?

Why didn't all this fighting ever change anything?

As I stared into the crowds which thronged Leia's funeral, I wondered if she had felt like she'd accomplished what she'd set out to do. I wondered if she even knew what she wanted to accomplish, besides fighting back. I looked at Poe, at he who had taken up her mantle, and wondered what he hoped to accomplish, and how he hoped to do it.

In that instant, however, it occurred to me that it was possible this wasn't the most efficient way to achieve peace.

And that was assuming "peace" was the goal of those around me.

Of course, it was. It _had_ to be. How could anyone's goal be to keep fighting?

An arm came around my shoulders and I looked to my side to see Finn was there. He must have seen my troubled look and assumed I was troubled over Leia's death. I was, of course, but at that moment I was troubled about other things. I gave him something of a smile and he encouraged me with his own.

I drew a breath and let it out.

"And now," said Poe, finishing, "I'd like to turn over a moment to our resident Jedi Master Rey to give us a few words about General Organa."

I blinked, surprised, but I allowed it and approached the podium, despite anxiety.

It's different to have all the eyes of the Resistance on you at once when you're used to watching them look at someone else. I hoped I would say something worth listening to.

"Leia Organa was an inspiration," I began. "She was full of wisdom, she was kind and she was also fierce. She could be cruel when necessary, but she could also be as loving as a mother."

I went on to list the necessary partial list of the many incredible things she had accomplished, and then I stretched experimentally into the miasma in which my thoughts had been mired.

"She showed me that I don't have to be one thing, that I can be many things, and that the heart of success is finding the balance between all the things I am. That's what she was, and I hope that we can all remember her by striving to find that balance in ourselves."

I watched the eyes which gazed upon me for a moment, and then I went on to finish.

"Perhaps it is through _balance_ that we will find peace," I said.

 _Perhaps we won't have to fight, not anymore._

I didn't say that out loud, but I thought it. I thought it _hard._

I began to turn away and stopped, for I saw Ben Solo gazing at me from aside. I wondered how much of my speech he had heard, and I wondered how much of it he might agree with.

Remembering myself, I left the podium and assumed my position beside Finn, pretending Ben wasn't nearby. Poe regained the spotlight to give closing thoughts.

Ben disregarded that I was ignoring him. Certainly, he knew why; I was standing in front of the entire Resistance. I couldn't do anything. He fixed me, eager for my gaze whenever I could land upon him.

"Do you really believe that?" he asked. "About balance?"

He seemed intrigued by the idea. I could only glance at him, noticing he wore his standard black today, as usual with gloves. I wondered why anyone would wear gloves indoors, except to further cloak one's humanity. Curiosity was in his eyes, as if the concept of balance had piqued his interest in a way he craved.

"I have contemplated it for years," he confessed to me.

I found that interesting, for I'd always thought he leaned towards darkness. He glanced around me restlessly for a moment.

"Can't you go somewhere else?" he asked. "Somewhere alone?"

I glanced at him as if to say, _Of course not, it's Leia's funeral, for crying out loud._ I'd hoped that got through clearly enough. He gave me a dry look.

"Surely you can come up with something," he said.

I wanted to roll my eyes, yet I was intrigued. I _did_ want to talk to him, and I didn't know how long the connection would last today.

"You're Rey of Jakku, Holy Jedi Salvation of the Resistance," he said, as if mocking such a thing, and I gave him a sharp glance. "I'm fairly certain if you just walked out everyone would assume you had a good reason."

I decided to try ignoring him.

"It's almost over, anyway isn't it?" he asked.

I hadn't expected him to be so disrespectful at his own mother's funeral. Yet, it was indeed almost over. My desire to talk with him was combined with my desire to give him a piece of my mind for distracting me at this solemn time, and it overran my obligation to stay. I turned to Finn.

"I… don't feel very well," I murmured to my friend.

Finn looked at me with concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I kind of hated being deceitful with Finn, even if it was a small thing.

"I'll be fine," I whispered, "I just have to go to my rooms."

I exited as graciously as I could manage, and no one questioned my departure. Walking swiftly, I ignored Ben the whole way to my rooms, wondering and not wanting to discover if he was or wasn't gloating.

Finally, I shut the door to my bedroom and turned on him.

"How dare you show such disrespect at your mother's funeral!" I said.

He blinked at me, and then his eyes shifted towards something more rebellious and engaged.

"I've already mourned her, and I will continue to mourn her," he said to me. "Why should I care for the trite babblings of the Resistance elite? Did they know her, or did they just think they knew her? Did they really care about her, or did they abandon her once she'd fulfilled her use to them?"

I shook my head at him.

"How did your view of the Resistance become so cynical?" I asked.

"When it took everything I cared about from me," he replied.

I felt shaken by his vulnerable response. I turned aside, and my righteous fury was further doused as he moved closer to me, bringing himself and his singularity within my peripherals in such a way that it beat out all else and left me wholly focused on the moment, on him, and unable to remember why I should be angry.

"Did you feel that?" he inquired, softly, after a moment.

I glanced up at him.

"Feel what?" I asked, though maybe I knew.

"I'll do it again," he said, stepping back several paces. I noticed an emptiness, though subtle, which remained when he did so.

He moved towards me again, and this time I focused on how it felt when he did it, and I did feel it; it was as if he and I were surrounded by fields of energy, complementary to one another, which meshed and wove together like vines across spacetime spreading into sunlight. It felt satisfying, like being wrapped in a warmed blanket after being in the cold, yet it was subtle, so subtle that I hadn't noticed it, but I was now aware the effect had been there for, perhaps, always, like a forgotten emotion. Like nostalgia yet unfolding in real time.

"Yes," I said in wonder, "I do feel it."

He held up his hand, palm out, between us, and I moved, bringing my hand through the web of space-time, curved and thickened as it was around us, and met his palm with my own. With my senses heightened, I could feel the thickening of gravity around us, the pull between us, the balance which we created, somehow. It was dense, heady, atmospheric, like the plummeting, crushing atmosphere of a swirling gas giant. Where our hands touched it gained further density, greater gravity.

As our palms touched, his gloved fingertips came to rest with delicacy upon mine and I found myself acutely aware of the sensation, of his precise tenderness. I felt as if there were great power between us, yet I had no idea how it was to be used. I looked at his face and saw he was as wrapped in curiosity, as piqued, as forcibly drawn to our anomaly as I was.

His eyes flicked from our touching hands to me.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said, "but I felt it immediately, the moment we met."

I blinked.

"In the forest?" I asked, feeling incredulous.

His nod was brief, slight. I suppose it made sense that he would have been more aware of things like this, since I had never been trained.

"Is that why you took me to your ship?" I asked.

"No," he said, and then his gaze broke with hesitation. "Or perhaps yes. I don't know. I didn't think it was at the time, I thought I was only getting the information from you about the droid… or trying to. But."

He drew a breath and sighed it out, glancing over me. His head shook as if he were embroiled in inner imaginings of forests and failed mind control and awakenings.

"I'm not so sure anymore," he said. "It must have drawn me, even unconsciously, to do the things I did, the way I did them."

I let my fingers fall like feathers through the spaces between his own, and he watched, his fingers mild and allowing. Our hands finally clenched together, fingers interlaced, our palms flush, tight, firm and intent. Our eyes found each other just after.

"I begin to wonder how autonomous I really have been, and how much of my actions have been dictated to me… by _this_ ," he said, his voice soft, thoughtful. "How often did I think I was acting of my own free will when I was unknowingly affected by you and the Force between us?"

Our hands maintained a tight mutual hold, as if declaring the truth and reality of our bond against the skepticism of all who might question it.

"How much of my life has pulled me to this moment?" he asked. "Am I who I am, have I suffered what I have suffered, so that I could balance like this, here, now, with you?"

I felt as if I might cry, though I couldn't exactly pinpoint why.

"Are you implying that our lives are not our own, but the will of the Force?" I asked. "That we have no free will, but are thrown about by the whims of forces greater than ourselves?"

"I don't know what I am implying," he said, and he moved closer, causing the combined energies around us to swirl, as if he shifted through water. I was acutely aware, now that it'd been made known to me, of every movement in the Force between us. I was aware that there was a pulling gravity between us, pulling us closer to each other, that required effort to resist. "I'm only trying to make sense of all this."

"I believe we make choices," I said, "and that those choices are our own."

He gazed down upon me.

"And what else?" he inquired.

"I believe we can be guided by the Force," I said, "but not ruled by it."

"Then our lives are ours?" he asked me.

I nodded to him.

He released his tight hold upon my hand, extricating his fingers from mine, then, upon release, he took my hand in a gentler way and lifted it, raising it towards his lips.

He kissed my hand, soft, surprising, breath-catching, lingering.

I stifled my gasp and slipped my hand from his, reclaiming it, disallowing his advance.

"Why did you do that?" I asked, hoping my cheeks were not telling, not flushed to recognition.

"Because I am drawn to do so," he replied simply, unrepentant.

"We are _enemies,_ " I said.

"Are we?" he wondered.

"Yes," I said, "of course we are."

He watched me.

"I am the Jedi Master of the Resistance and you are the Supreme Leader of the First Order!" I said, exasperated.

There was silence, and then he broke it:

"But _are_ we enemies?" he asked.

I exhaled and searched his face.

"You haven't once tried to kill me, today," he said, and I thought I noticed something of a smile touch his eyes.

"That's because," I said, gazing about for answers, "That's because…"

The bad part was I didn't have any reason why. I would have been in grand trouble with my friends if they knew how much private time I had with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren in which I was definitely _not_ trying to eliminate him from existence. It would have simplified so much to remove him from power. It seemed as if I had the perfect opportunity to help the cause of the Resistance, but I never took it.

The truth was, I'd sooner stab myself than Ben Solo, so integral, so engrossing, so _fascinating_ was our connection. It was powerful. Vastly, vastly powerful. It was beautiful, and there was something in it which told me we had everything we needed. We could, perhaps, somehow, balance the Force. We could, perhaps, within my hope, stop the wars that plagued our galaxy.

I looked back to him, and he was waiting, patient as always, for me to finish working through my thoughts.

"That's because I can't," I said, my voice coming out weaker than expected.

He didn't gloat or hold it over me. He feinted, in his eyes, he held the door open for me, the one between us, with courtesy and understanding. It was too much for me and I demanded a power struggle.

I took his hand rashly and tore the glove from it, baring his skin, his naked hand, for my having. I brought it to my mouth and kissed it, feeling his hand twitch subtly and hearing a faint gasp escape him at the touch. I looked up at him, defiant that turn-about-was-fair-play, and I was taken aback by the intensity that swirled in his eyes.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded, though his hand remained surrendered to my possession.

"Because I wanted to," I replied, defiant.

"Why did you want to?" he countered.

"I felt it," I said.

"Felt what?" he asked.

"The Force," I replied.

"Did the Force make you kiss me?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

"Then why did you do it?" he asked.

I hesitated.

"Because I wanted to," I repeated.

"Then why can't I?" he asked. "Are we not enemies? Is this a privilege only the Resistance gets to enjoy? Why is it unequal?"

I huffed a soft laugh due to the absurdity of our present contention.

"You didn't ask permission, and neither did I," I said. "Therefore, we are on equal grounds."

"We are not," he said.

"How?" I asked.

"You have expressed displeasure towards my kiss," he said, "indicating it is forbidden."

"You expressed indifference towards mine," I countered.

"That was not indifference," he objected.

"Then what was it?" I asked.

"Try it again," he dared, "and see."

I felt my breath go short at his challenge. His hand and fingers were still warm and tactile within my own. I felt as if I were put on the spot, yet there was something which shot through me, like a faint thrill.

I watched him this time, as I lifted his hand to my mouth. Before my lips could touch his skin, he spoke softly:

"Feel what happens to me… through the Force."

I became aware of my breathing and the slight labor which weighed it as I felt between us, at the entwined vines of energy and strength, force and gravity, at the unique, unmistakable signature of _him_. I felt a shift in the Force even at the brush of my breath against his fingers, an exquisite twisting, almost a torture. My lips fell against his hand and he pulsed with truth: it was everything he wanted, just then, everything, and my lips parted and he fell apart in an instant then pulled himself back together in the next, and I tasted his hand and he groaned, twisted further by energies, tortured by inaction, and when my teeth brushed his skin he inhaled sharply and tore his hand from my grasp.

Awakened, I looked up at him with surprise and saw he was withdrawn, perhaps clutching a door behind him, or a piece of furniture, for support or safety, with his breaths coming short and deep. I perceived a faint sheen of sweat on his temple.

"I-I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know what happened… I was just so focused on you that it just _came_."

"Yes," he replied, breathless and abrupt, his eyes not leaving me.

I noticed his bare hand, and so I picked up his glove from my floor. The leather was soft, well-made, and I rubbed it between my fingers.

"Ben," I said.

"Yes?" was his immediate reply.

"I suppose it would only be fair to allow you to kiss my hand, now," I said.

"Perhaps next time," he said.

I glanced up at him, and he was still on edge. There was a stiffness about him, a caution, a bewilderment and a fascination, like the first time I'd fought his interrogation and won his mind.

"Very well," I said, feeling awkward and stupid.

I held out his glove for him; he reached for it, but never made it, for he faded from me like a ghost.

His glove remained in my possession.

-O-O-O-


	4. Force Bond D

-IV-

Our next force bond didn't begin in privacy. It happened while I was training some of the Jedi recruits.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded of me, as if he could demand anything of me.

I didn't spare him a glance and instead moved on.

"You're training new Jedi," he spat with derision. "Hasn't the past taught you anything? Hasn't it taught anyone anything?"

After that, I did spare him a glance, and I suppose it might have been lined with vitriol.

"Again," I called to my students, "Line up."

"You're making the same mistakes every Jedi has made before you," he seethed, following me with his eyes and body, despising my actions yet seeming unable to ignore them. "The Jedi have always been so sodden with hubris they believe they have the right to teach the force to whomever they choose."

"Go," I commanded to the recruits, ignoring Ben, and observing their attempts.

He fell silent, brooding, but he watched. I knew there would be nothing lost on him, though his opposition was no longer vocalized.

Today I was teaching them to use the force to anticipate their opponent's swings. The recruits, almost a dozen of varying ages and types, were parrying with wooden staves, since I supposed that was the combat with which I was most accomplished and qualified to instruct.

The sound of clacking staves to varying degrees of success broke through the air, while sounds of greater, more intense Resistance combat echoed in the distance.

"You must feel it, using the Force as another sense," I said, "It is more important than sight, or touch, or sound."

"They're not anywhere near ready for combat, are they?" inquired Ben, knowing I had to ignore him in front of my recruits.

"Line up again," I called, gesturing with my staff, and they moved.

"Are you ready to accept the burden of their deaths when you let them fight?" he asked me.

I gave him a hard glance.

"Because that's what is going to happen," he said. "Where did you get them? Farms? Are they all _farmhands_?"

I ignored him as best I could. He was goading me, and I knew it. I felt my cheeks burn with irritation, regardless, and I tried to watch and observe the use of the force among my padwans.

"I don't suppose I could convince you to stop, could I?" he inquired.

"No," I said to him, before realizing I'd spoken out loud.

"Am I doing it wrong?" asked the nearest recruit, pausing her actions at my outburst.

"No, no," I replied, gesturing for her to continue, "You're fine; keep going. I was just… thinking about something else."

Ben gave me a tiny smirk, as if he'd _won_ something. It was infuriating.

"Maybe if I distract you enough," he said, having turned into something else entirely from the outrage he'd expressed earlier, "you'll give up."

"Halt," I called, and the recruits stopped, turning their gazes upon me. "Line up and start again, this time focus on the Force for a count of three before you begin to move."

Kylo Ren moved closer to me, the salient aura of his Force pressing against and through mine.

"Do you think," he said, his voice closer, lower, "you can perceive what those lightweights are doing with the Force while I'm so near you?"

I couldn't at all, to be truthful. I was so Force-blinded by his brightness in my periphery that I had no idea what my students may or may not be doing with the Force. I certainly wasn't going to tell him that, though.

"Can you feel anything," he asked, near, too near, "but me?"

I tried to hide my shaking breath, and I wasn't sure if I succeeded, but he fell blessedly silent at that moment.

"Ready?" I called, and then: "Begin!"

The clacking of staves broke the tension which had built in the Force between us. I tried to feel what my students were doing, but Ben's proximity stubbornly filled my senses.

"Rey," he whispered, and I moved away, putting space between us. I glanced at him, chiding him visibly for changing tack; for moving from fury to whatever specious seduction this was. For this, I would make him suffer, but later.

I paced around my ground of recruits, watching their movements, and gauging success by foretelling their opponents' attacks. Kylo Ren followed me as his irritation mingled with curiosity.

"Stop!" I called, and they halted with expectation on their faces. "Break for fifteen minutes and then we will begin again."

I smiled at them, though I didn't feel like smiling as I strode towards the nearest woode with a dark shadow by my side that only I could see.

When I broke into the forest proper, I leaned against a tree and slid to a seat, a sigh escaping me with my burden of stress. I closed my eyes and ignored Kylo Ren, who was still nearby. I could feel him and didn't know why he remained silent. It annoyed me.

"When did it become your mission to irritate me?" I mused, keeping my eyes closed.

"Perhaps it has always been so," he replied.

I allowed my eyes to crack open to observe Ben, who had seated himself before me and was watching me in an entirely guileless way, without shame or self-consciousness. His dark clothing pooled around him, made of the best materials, perhaps by the best tailors, and I wondered upon what surface he sat. I had to chortle.

"You've replaced your glove," I said, noticing his hands.

"Can I have my other one back?" he asked.

"It's in my room," I replied.

"Will you go get it?" he inquired.

"No," I said, closing my eyes again.

I felt his energy shift, irritation soaking into it, and I felt pleasure as a result.

"You need to stop training new Jedi," he said, falling back into old wounds.

"I'll train new Jedi if I want," I replied, not caring.

"Rey," he said.

I ignored him.

"Rey," he said again, more insistent.

I opened my eyes out of pity.

"What is it?" I asked, seeing in his face that he was serious.

"Rey," he said, vocalizing my name a third time. It affected me, somehow, the more he did it. "It's all wrong. The Jedi code, it isn't right."

"Who are you to say?" I asked.

He glanced away, his mind clearly at work. There was something about this, something of which he cared about deeply, that he was trying to express, so I decided to give him the time he needed to pull it out and place it on the table.

Drawing a breath, he let it out and spoke fervently:

"I don't have proof of all this, Rey, not yet. I only know a little of what there is to be known, I'm aware of my naiveté, but… the Jedi… I don't think they were originally meant to be what they became. I think over time the philosophy got changed and warped in ways that were, well, _wrong_. Ways that caused the downfall and near entire destruction of the Jedi," he said.

"Do you propose that the Sith are right?" I asked incredulously.

"No," he countered immediately, giving me pause. "Neither. They're both wrong."

I watched his face. I liked it when his face was open, like this. When he was thinking deeply about something and telling it to me like it was a secret he'd held, warmed, clutched to his breast for longer than he could remember. At times like this I liked Ben Solo and wanted to know more.

His musings intrigued me, though I had my own opinions on the matter.

"What would you propose, if I don't train these recruits to be Jedi?" I asked.

"I would propose you train them to use the Force," he said.

"But that would be training them to be Jedi," I said.

"Not necessarily," he said.

"I'm certainly not going to train them to be Sith!" I objected.

"Of course not," he replied.

"Then what?" I asked. "What do you think I should do?"

"A balance," he said, meaning it to his bones. I felt his desire for exactly this, this _balance_ running all through the Force between us, like a longing that fueled the fabric of his subatomic thrall. Yet, the concept baffled me.

I shook my head and leaned back against the tree.

"I cannot begin to know what you propose," I said. "I'll not teach dark side use to anyone. You cannot convince me, Kylo Ren."

He leaned toward me, his weight resting on a gloved hand.

"I can teach you," he said, the possible implications of his proposal hanging, shimmering in the air.

I looked up at him, his dark head haloed by the bloom of sunlight through verdant boughs.

"Ben," I said, calling his name softly. He waited for what I would say next; I felt his anticipation, his curiosity, and the full weight of his attention upon me. " _I_ can teach _you_."

He exhaled sharply and leaned away, turning his attention another way, like the blinding beam of a lighthouse gone, shining elsewhere distant. Something in me mourned its loss a little.

"I cannot believe you," he muttered in exasperation, his hand in his hair.

"That's your choice to make," I said with a shrug, washing my hands of his decisions.

"It was a rhetorical statement," he said, glancing sharply at me, with frustration like acid at his seams. "You… you're being _ridiculous_."

"Am I?" I inquired.

At that moment it was as if he snapped, as if he'd been holding everything in and finally let it loose upon me. He stiffened and turned the full force of his attention upon me.

" _I_ am the one who was formally trained on both sides; _I_ am the one who was taught… for _years_ … by a Jedi master and then an equally powerful dark force user. _I_ am the one who learned to worship both in a Jedi temple and in the rage and fire of battlefields, who built my own lightsaber and then _modified_ it to be a saber of my own choosing and desires. _I am the one who has all the knowledge,_ and you?"

He paused, his gaze falling across me, at once both derisive and pensive, and a small part lost.

"You're just a scavenger," he said. "Everything you know, you took from _me_."

"That isn't true!" I objected.

"Isn't it?" he countered at once, leaning in like a snake poised to strike, his words dripping with venom. "How did you know how to fight back at my mind when I interrogated you? How did you know how to manipulate the storm troopers who were guarding you? How did you know how to call a light saber to your hand, or better yet, _how did you know how to wield it in battle?_ "

I opened my mouth to retort, but he cut me off.

"I've seen you fight," he seethed, his voice thin, close, just for me, but not kind. "You fight like _me._ I don't know how you did it, but you've scavenged my knowledge from me, like a _parasite_. "

I'd had enough of his insults, of his calling me names as if I were the smallest, most insignificant trash in the galaxy. I reached through the lightyears that separated us and contacted his dark-clad shoulder with the palm of my hand, pushing him away, out of my space and back into his own.

He was startled by the touch, as rough as it was; he hadn't expected it. It took him a moment to recover, and it was enough time for me to get a word in.

"You pretend as if you know everything, but I know you," I said, and I saw self-doubt spring into his eyes at my words, and I watched him try to hide it. "You're right, I'm not formally trained, except by Luke Skywalker-"

"But that was after you'd already-," he interjected.

"I _know_ ," I said, holding up a hand, and he held his peace for the moment. "I can't begin to claim that I know what is happening between us, Ben, but Luke helped me to make a little bit more sense of all this."

His shoulders settled in a small movement and I could sense he waited for me to go on.

"And you're right," I said, "I did, somehow, gain from you the instinct for many things with the Force. I don't know how it happened. I didn't mean for it to happen. I didn't even _want_ it to happen; of course I didn't. You… you've been nothing but trouble."

I felt his feathers starting to ruffle and I went on quickly.

"But what I choose to do with the same knowledge you possess is completely different from the choices you've made," I said.

"I feel like you don't know enough," he said, "Or your choices would be different."

"Oh?" I asked, bemused. "Would they be the same as yours?"

"Perhaps," he said, clearly thinking that yes, they would.

I rolled my eyes at his gall.

"And perhaps it is the case that your choices would be different if you possessed all of my knowledge," I replied.

He gazed silently at me.

"Do you think that it's possible that at the moment I gained knowledge from you, that perhaps you also gained knowledge from me?" I asked.

He glanced away.

"Have you felt any different since we first met?" I asked.

"Of course I have," he chided, as if that was the stupidest question in the world.

"How?" I asked.

He seemed uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

I allowed my shoulders to relax back into the tree upon which I leaned, and I watched him, finding his reactions particularly interesting.

"Ben?" I prompted.

He gave me a sideways glance.

Drawing a breath, perhaps to steady himself, he began.

"I cannot," he said, each word seeming to be forced from his lips, "stop thinking about you."

Avoiding eye contact, he sat, perhaps waiting for the interrogation to be over, and I noticed an interesting feeling hung suspended in the air between us, like a dense aura waiting to be resolved.

Allowing my hand to fall to the side, I touched his knee with two of my fingertips. He startled at the contact, and his gaze turned to me.

"Is that all?" I asked at last.

Lifting his chin slightly, he seemed to be gauging how much to tell.

"I… feel the pull to the light more strongly," he admitted. "The struggle pains me… constantly."

I found that extremely interesting.

"Why do you resist?" I asked.

"Why do you resist the dark?" he countered, sharp, as if his words were weaponized. I was unsettled by him at once and pulled away from his proximity.

"Because," I said, finding myself defensive, "it's _wrong_."

"How foolish you are!" he exclaimed, and then his voice fell at once thin and seething, "How _naïve._ "

"Naïve is what we _both_ are," I objected.

He paused. Perhaps he found truth in what I'd said. It was a parley, of sorts, to admit we both had no idea what we were doing.

Glancing over me, he said: "I would ask you to refrain from making _morality_ judgments about things which you don't fully understand."

"Fair enough," I ceded. "Though, you must admit that causing others pain and misfortune isn't a good thing to do."

He shifted.

"Perhaps," he said, having his turn to cede. "But you must admit that the dark side doesn't entirely consist of causing others pain and misfortune."

"Just mostly," I said.

I felt him grow agitated, so I touched his knee again.

"I was only joking," I assured him.

He calmed at once.

"Mostly," I said.

He squinted at me.

"Really, Ben, think about what Snoke made the First Order do," I said, spreading my hands before me.

He seemed more disappointed I'd taken my hand from his knee than by what I'd said.

"What Snoke made the First Order do," he replied, "were his choices, not something mandated by the dark side of the Force."

That's something I hadn't considered before. I, like everyone I knew, had just assumed the dark side of the Force was synonymous with murder and pillage.

"He was not a Sith Lord," said Ben. "And he understood how power works. He orchestrated the destruction of the Republic due to his dissatisfaction with it, but he also arranged for an adequate power source to take its place in the galaxy."

"And you find that perfectly reasonable?" I asked, feeling disbelief.

"It is what it is," he said, averting his gaze for a moment.

After a while his gaze came back to mine, something vulnerable within it.

"You don't," I said, reading him, and fascinated by what I saw. "You don't find it reasonable."

He tried to shutter his gaze, to hide himself from me.

"The destruction of the Republic… you didn't like how Snoke did it, did you?" I pried.

"Why are you asking me this?" he seethed, his patience thinning.

I let my weight shift against the trunk and observed him, aglow in the sunlight of mid-afternoon as it filtered through the forest's roof. At once I wondered if he saw the sunlight like I did. He was so dark, dressed in the emptiest blacks the galaxy could produce, yet at his edges I watched the sunlight brighten his hair and scatter across his pale face, and outline the profile of his shoulders with a golden, rich glow.

I felt the shifting agitation of his expectant question lose velocity as the seconds passed between us, as I felt him also become aware of the moment. I wondered what I looked like to him in the depths of space. Was the sun upon me where he sat, or was I lit by the harsh illumination of a ship's artificial light? Could he feel the sunshine upon his shoulders?

Did he have any idea how beautiful he looked with the sun shining upon him?

I caught my breath and looked away, irritated at myself for thinking such a thing, despite the truth to it.

He'd grown still, his previous question forgotten. I felt curiosity drift from him in delicate waves.

A moment passed filled with expectation, and then another. I heard him draw a slow breath.

"Rey," he said, and I looked at him at once. He held out his hand. "Give me your hand."

I knew what he wanted, what he was going to do, and yet I gave him my hand willingly, anyway.

He held my hand before him in his with an unexpected delicacy.

"I have my reasons for abandoning the Jedi Order," he told me, sincerity pulsing from him in waves.

"What are they?" I asked, noticing my voice had gone soft.

"I could not abide by their teachings," he replied.

"In what way?" I asked.

"I…," he began, faltering, and then he glanced around us. "I don't know if I'll have time to tell you properly. I don't know how much longer this will last."

"When will you tell me?" I asked.

His eye fell to my hand, studying it within the confines of his own.

"Soon," he said, and he began to lift my hand to his mouth. I felt expectation grip me, but he paused. "Perhaps next time."

"I hope next time," I said, wondering when I had begun to anticipate a 'next time' with him.

He gazed at me, and suddenly I felt what he was doing; he was sensing me through the Force, and the act of nearly touching his lips to the back of my hand felt more intimate than it had any right to be. I felt the anticipation, and I felt his sensing of it; I felt his waiting, his intention, and then his breath brushed against my skin.

I felt goosebumps raise across my arm, and I shivered before I could stop myself.

His fingers tightened around my hand, just enough for me to feel it, and the distance between his mouth and my hand felt too far, but I knew he was stretching me; he was teasing me.

"Ben," I said, my voice coming out both soft and chiding, and I moved to pull my hand from his grasp, but he stopped me.

His kiss fell on my hand at last, and lingered, desperate to have me, but delicate like the back of a rose petal. I felt at once captured by the sea of sunlight playing across his hair, brightening the edges of blackest raven with warm sable tones. Like his eyes.

"Ben," I said again, but it was nearly a whisper, and it meant nothing, neither did I know why I said it, exactly.

When his gaze returned to mine, he looked lost.

This was fortunate, because so was I.

I touched his face at once, across the light years.

I think he might have said my name, but my senses were misfiring on all cylinders. So awash was I in the overload of the moment that I missed everything else but the awareness that my fingertips were on the curve of his jaw, and the awareness we shared was so overwhelming that I almost didn't hear the student calling my name.

"Master Rey?"

Ben and I pulled back from each other with a start, as if we'd done something wrong, as if we were two children caught in the act of stealing candy. He drew back like a pool of shadow, distant and silent, and I did the best I could to appear responsible and mature and… whatever else a Jedi Master should be. I was distantly aware I was pretty much failing at all those things on a continual basis.

"Yes?" I called, allowing the padwan to find me.

"Master Rey," said the student, relieved. "It's been nearly half an hour since our break, we were worried you'd left us."

I laughed at the idea, and the student smiled.

"I apologize," I said, sheepish. "I came to sit in the forest and must have fallen asleep. Too many late nights."

I stole a glance at Ben, who gave me a dark, silent smile that forced me to suppress a shiver.

The student helped me up and I brushed myself off.

"Let's get back to work, shall we?" I asked the student.

"Yes, Master," said the student, compliant and eager.

Ben wouldn't like that, I knew, but when I looked back to find him, he had faded.

I felt a loss at his absence.

-O-O-O-O-


	5. Force Bond E

-V-

It wasn't easy being aware that I was, in a sense, fraternizing with the enemy while putting on a pure Resistance face. It wasn't as if I believed what Ben was doing was right, of course I didn't. I hated the First Order and was against everything for which it stood. I was fully behind the cause of the Resistance. There was just a caveat, and that was Ben.

In my silent hours or my training hours, I would attempt to work through why that caveat existed. We were enemies, if one were to write these things down on paper in a logical sense. But there was something else outside of the First Order and the Resistance to which Ben and I belonged that transcended it all. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, but it was certainly something I could feel, even if I couldn't know it. I knew he could feel it, too.

"Hey, beautiful," said Poe from behind me on an occasion when I'd been considering larger things, such as Ben, or the Force. The general surprised me out of my musings.

"Oh," I replied. "Hi, Poe."

He came around the desk where I was sitting to lean his elbows upon it and view me at my level. His dark eyes were friendly, and as usual he smelled of the outdoors with a faint hint of rocket fuel.

"What are you looking at?" he inquired, glancing over the screen before me.

"Ah," I said, "these are the planets which have come under the umbrella of the Resistance. I was just looking at how things are going."

"Oh?" asked Poe, glancing over me once.

"I was just curious," I said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "But I noticed something…"

"What is that?" he asked.

"A lot of these planets don't seem to be doing much better than they were before," I said, pointing out a volley of statistics beneath several planet facsimiles.

Poe gave a soft chuckle and reached across me, flicking off the screen, closing my information.

"Don't worry about that," he said. "The only way to really know what's happening is to be on the ground and, trust me, they're doing great."

"Oh," I replied. "They are?"

There was something that flickered behind Poe's eyes, like a reaction towards being questioned, as if he didn't like it. It was gone, shuttered, covered up in an instant.

"Yes, Rey," he said to me, leaning against the desk. "They are."

"Alright," I complied, glancing around at the desk since the screen was now closed to me.

"Hey," he said, noticing my vague discontent. "Want to come with me next time we visit one?"

"Sure," I said, pleased with the idea of getting off this Resistance base and doing something more interesting. "When will that be?"

"Tomorrow," he said with his trademark, easy smile which laid somewhere between confident and cocky, "Be ready at dawn."

"Okay," I replied, returning his smile with my own.

This was something I could look forward to. As I walked back to my rooms, I wondered what kind of planet we would visit, and what I would find. I was certain I would find some answers to my questions and my fears, and I would see that the Resistance is helping people find better lives outside of the rule of the First Order. I hoped dearly that Ben was wrong.

I arrived in my room to find Ben was there, standing near a corner, blending into a pool of shadow untouched by the streaming skylight above.

"Ben," I said when I saw him, "how long have you been here?"

"How long have you been there?" he asked in reply.

"I've only just arrived," I said.

"So have I, it seems," he said, glancing around my room. Or was he glancing around his room?

"May I ask," I started, feeling oddly formal, "where we are for you?"

"My room," he replied, his voice clipped, as if attempting not to betray anything. "And for you?"

"The same," I said, then glanced up. "Can you see that light?"

He looked up towards where my gaze was.

"No," he said.

"Step forward," I said. "Come into the light."

He seemed to withdraw deeper into the shadows at my words, but, after a moment, he moved forward until I could watch the skylight spill across his face, causing depth of shadow to be juxtaposed by brilliant light. I found myself smiling up at him, pleased with his proximity.

"Have I come far enough?" he asked me, his voice softer with his nearness.

"Yes," I said, glancing over his brightened features. "What is your room like?"

He glanced around himself as if considering how to describe his surroundings.

"Dark," he said. "There's a big window, though. Usually it's full of space, but once in a while there's a planet…"

"What's in it right now?

I saw him gazing at something I couldn't see.

"A moon," he said. "Crescent."

"That sounds nice," I said.

He looked at me as if my conversation was silly.

"What is your room like?" he asked.

"It's nice," I said. "But simple. I have a bed, and a skylight, and you're standing in sunlight right now."

"Am I?" he mused.

"I like it," I said, before I could think to stop myself. His eyes found me, razor sharp in their intensity, knowing that I had just admitting liking something about him, even if it was just how he looks in sunlight.

I glanced away.

"There was something you wanted to explain to me," I said, moving to sit on my bed.

He watched me move and sit, and I wondered how that might look to him. Was I sitting in thin air?

"Why I abandoned the Jedi Order?" he inquired, moving to sit beside me.

I felt nervous as he did so, and I also wondered how he could do so. Was his bed in the same place as mine? Was he interacting with things in my world somehow?

"Yes," I said, trying not to look distracted. "Oh, and…"

I reached beneath my pillow and pulled out his glove.

"This is yours," I said, handing it over. I would never tell him how many times I'd sniffed its scent, the scent of leather mixed with him.

He took it and something of a smile passed across his face. Brushing the glove neatly beneath his hands, he began to speak.

"I didn't believe in it anymore," he said. "The Jedi way."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it is filled with hypocrisy," he said, a bitterness rising in his voice. "How can an order call itself good and require its members to have no attachment?"

"Oh," I said, considering, "isn't that supposed to help Jedi make more clear decisions? You know, if they're not attached to anyone, they can view everything more objectively."

"To have no attachments is to be inhuman," he said to me, looking as if he meant it deeply, almost painfully. "Jedi are also taught to have compassion. How can you have compassion if you don't truly care about anyone?"

I paused, not sure how to answer his question, because I didn't know.

"What is it supposed to be, some kind of vague compassion on everyone without actually caring about anyone in particular?" he asked, as if I might be able to answer.

"Maybe instead it means caring about whoever is in front of you, no matter who that is," I said. "Isn't that compassion?"

"I suppose," he said, shifting and running his hands over his legs, as if restless. He stared off, irritable, into the distance.

"It's a juxtaposition no matter how you look at it," I offered.

"It is," he said, taking my offering as if starved for it. "And it's wrong."

I watched him for a moment, considering.

"Perhaps taking children from their parents isn't the best practice," I said.

His eyes shuttered and he turned away, leaving only part of his jawline and his hair for me to view. I knew through the Force that he was intensely agitated; I could feel it in him. Some residue of it rubbed off on me. I took a chance with my next statement.

"I suppose you never forgave them for it," I said.

He only hesitated a moment.

"Who?" he inquired, not quite meeting my gaze.

"Your parents," I said, "and your uncle… and perhaps even the Jedi as a whole."

His gaze came to mine in a shredded line.

He looked away again and said, "No. I haven't forgiven any of them."

I found myself touching his knee. His demeanor softened the moment I touched him, though he showed know outward sign that I could see. I simply felt it.

I also felt something pass between us that could have been spoken in words, yet he seemed not to want to use words to discuss it. It went something like this: I felt like he needed to find a way to forgive everyone, and he didn't want to hear it. Or rather, he didn't want to _feel_ it.

"For as long as you refuse to forgive them, they will continue to have power over you," I said.

He turned to look at me, perhaps not realizing that was the case until I'd said it. I glanced away, taking my hand from his knee.

"I know power is important to you," I said, plucking at my leggings.

"You're right," he said, something like awe in his voice.

"Yes, well," I said, waving a hand, "if you want to deny them power over you, then you need to forgive them. They're casting a shadow over your life without any effort at all, and that seems one-sided. In fact, it almost seems as if you're just hurting yourself. You're certainly not getting revenge on them by being angry and miserable."

He stared at me.

" _Stars,_ " he oathed.

"You don't have to be a Jedi, Ben," I said, "You can be whatever you want, can't you?"

"Yes, but-," he began.

"Didn't you tell me about that yourself yesterday?" I asked. "Didn't you say you wanted to be neither Jedi nor Sith?"

"Not really, not in those words," he said, though he still had an astounded look on his face. "But you're not wrong."

"Then what will you be?" I asked.

He watched me quietly for a moment, his gaze travelling over my face.

"That is yet to be seen," he replied, musing.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around.

"What else do you hate about the Jedi?" I asked.

He almost seemed to find my question funny.

"Rey…" he began.

"Yes?"

"Are you teaching those force users to be exactly like Jedi?" he asked. "Are you changing nothing?"

"Well," I replied, "I'm not sure. I'm trying, but I don't really know enough to be sure I'm doing it right."

"Do you want some help?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He glanced down at his hands.

"Rey," he said, lifting his gaze back to mine, as if this was something that required courage to ask, "would you like to reform the Jedi with me? Make them not 'Jedi', but simply force users? To take what the Jedi taught and… I don't know… fix it? Make it better?"

"Or would we make it worse?" I asked with a half-laugh.

"I don't see how it could be worse," he said.

"But how would we know what to do?" I asked. "How would we know we're even going in the right direction? Who are we to reform a practice formed over thousands of years?"

His gave a one-shouldered shrug and fiddled with the glove in his hands.

"I suppose we'd use the Force," he said, and there was something about the way he said it that struck me. He seemed so… _young_ , so _inexperienced_ , and yet, there was something so guileless about what he said and his demeanor at that instant, that I found myself wondering if it could work.

Could we reform the Jedi, make them better, using the Force as our guide? Wouldn't the Force know what's best, if we could attune ourselves to it for direction? The ideas that Ben had brought before me filled my mind with a chaotic wonder I found difficult to absorb.

Were we just two unguided idiots who would only make things worse with our meddling? Did we deserve to use the Force at all, with our lack of training? We had no masters, not any longer. We had no one to guide us. But maybe this was how the Force wanted it. Maybe. I couldn't know.

Still, here was Ben Solo, beside me, yet not beside me. We were inextricably connected, somehow, through the Force.

I found myself suddenly wishing the First Order and the Rebellion didn't exist anymore. I wished that it was just us, that all these other things would fade away and we could just do what it felt more and more we were meant to do. This war was in the way, and for a moment, I hated it. I resented it.

"Rey," said Ben, and I realized he was looking at me with interest. He must have felt the feelings that had roiled through me as I'd thought. "Tell me what you think."

I opened my mouth to speak and paused as I looked up into his face. Sometimes he was so open. I could forget, sometimes, that he was the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

"Ben," I said, my voice coming out soft, more tender than I'd expected. I felt a flush of embarrassment; my cheeks heated against my will.

"Tell me," he insisted, his voice softened to mine. "Do you think we can do it?"

I felt right then that he and I were the only two people in the universe. We might as well have been, we were each so focused upon the other.

"I think," I said, my voice falling nearly to a whisper, though he caught every word like fireflies, "the question is, do I _feel_ we can do it?"

His eyes traveled my face; his breath was shortened. I knew he was feeling as much as I was the singularity between us. The Force thickened around us as it did at times like this, times when we focused so intently upon each other that we could feel every nuance in the other's space.

"Do you?" he asked. "Do you feel we can do it?"

Now that I'd attuned myself to him, now that we'd attuned ourselves to each other, I watched the reflected light of sun give his features a muted glow and I basked in his presence. How in the universe could I adore him like this when we were at war? But I did. The bottom line was, I did.

"Ben, yes," I said, the words falling out of me like a cascade I couldn't stop. "Yes, I know we can."

He let out of a shaky breath and looked as if his disbelief were mixed with elation and even grief.

"How can I not know it?" I asked him. "Can't you feel it too?"

"I feel it," he replied, helpless. "I've felt it since the beginning."

"Since what beginning?" I asked.

"Since we met," he said.

"But you can't have known," I said, disbelieving.

He touched my arm, his gaze falling to his hand upon me and I was struck dumb.

"I wasn't clear on the details," he said, brushing his thumb across my shoulder.

I closed my eyes at his touch, inhaling the scent of him. Heady, metallic, densely clean.

His thumb rubbed across my shoulder twice… three times.

"But I knew," was his whisper.

A pause, and I opened my eyes to gaze into his.

"Didn't you?" he asked.

"I was afraid," I whispered.

"Are you now?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "But in a different way."

He tilted his head and there was something deeply intimate about his line of questioning.

"What are you afraid of now?" he asked me.

I lifted my hand to lay upon his chest. I glanced over his face, taking in his details, his softness, his intent, his deep, rich, sonorous attention which he poured upon me to overflowing.

"This… _this_ … is so incongruous with," and I glanced towards the door, towards outside, towards the rest of the galaxy, awash in endless combat, "with _that._ "

His hand gripped my shoulder and his other hand came to my wrist near his chest, but that one was gentle, gliding over my wrist as if not to deter it.

"How can this exist outside of that?" I asked him, running my hand from his chest to his neck. He was pliant, forgiving, willing, allowing of my touch. "How long can this go on until it collides with that?"

He sighed, and his face fell, causing a lock of hair to fall across his forehead, into his eyes. I reached at once to brush it out of his eyes, back, into his hair, and our gazes locked.

"Because it will," I said to him, softly. "It will collide."

"Then what shall we do?" he asked me, having fallen into the act of caressing my hand where it laid upon his neck. "Ignore this?"

"How could we?" I said with a soft laugh.

"Ignore the war?" he asked.

"We can't," I said.

"Then what?" he asked, even softer. I didn't know how he became softer and softer as time went on. I didn't know how we grew more and more close, nor how our minds aligned further the longer this connection went on. It felt like madness, the juxtaposition of it all.

Every once in a while, a solemn thought would bubble up and I would demand of myself why I didn't hate him. But here, now, at this moment, with my hand buried in his sable hair, the idea of hating him was the craziest idea in the galaxy. I _needed_ him. He was like air. His connection with the Force completed mine. I wanted to be with him. I wanted everyone else to go away and let me.

I closed my eyes and wished for another universe.

"Rey," he sighed.

"Ben," I whispered.

He pulled me against him; he crushed me into his steely universe, and I took his world and dragged him back into mine.

"Ben," I whispered again, against his neck. I breathed him in. I felt his hair between my fingers. I sighed against his ear: "Come with me."

I felt him tremble.

"Even though you know it's impossible," he murmured against my hair, the depth of his voice rumbling against my chest. "You still command my compliance."

"It isn't impossible," I whispered against his cheek.

"Isn't it?" he said, soft, close; I could feel his words, the percussive beat against my jawline of his lips, faint like the wings of a butterfly. After he spoke his lips lingered, and I found myself waiting for them to touch me again.

He kissed my jawline, in an exquisite place near my ear and my neck and I caught my breath. It was audible, sharp, almost embarrassing in its intensity. I felt so obvious. But why would I worry about being obvious now, when we were already in each other's arms?

His arms tightened around me in response and his lips fell to my neck, lingering, maddening. I found my head falling back in surrender to him, my arms looping around his shoulders, my hand sliding through the hair at the nape of his neck. I wanted more.

He pushed me back, down, to lie upon the bed and hovered over me as I lay there. His gaze fell over me, lingering at last on my face, and his hand cupped my cheek. He looked as if he adored me. It wasn't just a look; he _felt_ as if he adored me. He _did_ adore me. I knew it at once through the Force.

At that moment, I knew there could be no secrets between us.

He fell upon me and kissed me; I kissed him back. We felt each other through the Force and through more corporeal means. We were blinding in our combined radiance. I almost couldn't know what was happening, because all I could do was _feel_. I relished being covered by him, surrounded by him, nothing but him. Together we explored our mouths as if kissing were a form of art. I'd never felt anything like it. I was finished. I was done. This was it. This was all.

I don't know how long it was before one of his kisses lingered into tender obscurity and he spoke against my mouth, his voice warm, intimate, but restless as the weight of the galaxy began to creep into our edges, "How long… before you fade from me?"

He kissed me again.

"Never, I hope," I found myself saying against the end of his kiss. He kissed my temple, my brow. I touched his neck, his face, his hair, and pulled him down for another kiss, knowing there would be an end.

"I need to see you," he breathed.

"Here I am," I murmured.

"Not like this," he whispered.

"Then how?" I asked.

He tenderly brushed my hair back from my face and said, "In person, where I know you'll never fade from me."

I touched his hand, helpless to do anything but return his gaze.

He kissed me again, a small thing.

"Tell me how," he murmured. "How to see you. Where. When. I'll do anything."

I was stunned by his seemingly complete surrender.

"Anything?" I inquired.

His adoring expression slid into something wry.

"Anything within reason," he qualified.

I laughed, both disappointed and relieved by his refusal to change. I knew his idea of 'within reason' would be different from mine. It felt just then as if that was as it should be.

I touched his face, and his lips parted just a little, enticingly, beneath the caress of my thumb.

"Ben," I said.

"Yes?" he whispered, almost too soft to hear.

"I'm going to visit Ladza 440 tomorrow with Poe," I said. "He's going to show me how well a planet is faring with the liberty of the Resistance."

He pressed his lips together and made a soft sound. I could sense he didn't trust Poe at all, nor did he think that anyone was faring well after being set at liberty by the Resistance. In fact, he almost seemed as if he didn't think I should go at all.

So I pulled him down and kissed him again.

"Come find me," I whispered against his lips.

He made another quiet sound which wasn't assent, not yet, so I kissed him again, more, greater.

"Please," I sighed.

He kissed me back this time, deep, heady, and full.

"I will," he said.

I'm not sure how much more time our bond lasted on that day; I found it impossible to tell between kisses and quiet conversation how long it had been, but it was long enough that, by the time he faded from his place beside me, the sunlight had fallen far enough that its beams no longer suffused my skylight. When he was gone my room felt empty and a certain glow seemed to have faded, leaving behind a peculiar melancholy, a certain loss. I felt loss. I missed him at once. I don't know how long I laid upon my bed staring at the ceiling, feeling wan and listless, like a cut flower without water to fill it.

It took several hours until I regained the presence of mind to scold myself for behaving like a complete lunatic.

-O-O-O-O-O-


	6. This Is Not a Force Bond

-VI-

The next day I tried to act normal as Poe led me from the transports onto the surface of Ladza 440. I wasn't very good at it. I was shaken and had a nagging feeling that I was doing everything the wrong way. Still, I knew not what else to do, because I couldn't deny what I felt for Ben Solo. Within him was hope, for some reason, even though he played such an antagonistic role in reality. I wondered if, somehow, together we would reform the Jedi. I wondered if, somehow, together we would bring a new age to the galaxy.

"Rey," said Poe from beside me, shaking me out of my reverie.

I turned to see he was looked closely at me, as if trying to discern an ailment.

"Are you alright?" he inquired.

"Oh," I said, shaking my head as if to clear it, "I'm fine. I'm just… distracted."

"By anything in particular?" he asked, a winning smile on his face. I wondered if he thought I was distracted by _him_. That sounded like something he would think.

"Just some things I've been considering teaching my padwans," I assured him.

"Yes, of course," he said, perhaps not believing me.

I rolled my eyes at him.

"Are you going to show me this planet or what?" I asked, teasing.

He laughed a little.

"Yeah," he said to me, "I am."

Ladza 440 was a lovely little planet with glades and temperate forests dotted with lakes and wildflowers. As we strode together with a few dozen armed guards down the hollow that lead to a small settlement, I enjoyed the feeling of sunshine on my face. I never seemed to have enough sun anymore, not since leaving Jakku, though I was glad to be rid of Jakku. I soaked it in when I could.

"So how are the Force welders coming along?" he asked, making small-talk.

"Quite well," I replied, "though, I'm considering changing some of the Jedi teachings."

"Oh?" he asked. "In what way?"

I considered what to say.

"I want to reorganize the Jedi order to be more like what it was originally," I said.

"And how will you do that?" he asked. "How do you even know what it was like so long ago?"

"I do have the sacred texts," I said.

"Does that help?" he asked.

"Some," I said, with a half-shrug.

"Do you think the Jedi will be more powerful that way?" he asked.

"Um," I said, "I don't know. They're not meant to be warriors."

Poe stopped and looked at me.

"Wait," he said, and I paused. "You're not training them to fight?"

"I'm training them to defend themselves, yes, when necessary," I said.

What came out in Poe's gaze then was what he mostly kept hidden; the look in his eye when he felt his goals were being thwarted, when he didn't feel wholly in control, when things weren't what he wanted them to be. He opened his mouth to talk, but I superseded him.

"I am teaching them to use the Force," I said intently. "That's their purpose."

"Their purpose," said Poe, enunciating every word, as if I needed to hear it more clearly, "And the reason we are funding your training of Jedi, is to aid the Resistance."

"They will aid the Resistance," I said, "but perhaps not in the way you might think."

Poe's eyes narrowed at me and it occurred to me that this was a conversation we probably should have had half a year ago.

"The Jedi aren't simply warriors to serve your fight," I reinstated. "that's not what they're meant to be."

"Wait, wait," said Poe, holding up a hand. He looked exasperated. " _My_ fight? Isn't this _your_ fight, as well? Don't you want to destroy the First Order as much as me?"

I opened my mouth, but didn't have the chance to reply, for at that moment the sky was darkened by several transports coming to land nearby. They weren't Resistance transports.

"Those are-," said Poe.

"Oh, no," I said, recognizing the First Order symbol upon them. "No, no, no."

"How did they know we would be here?" wondered Poe.

"Oh, _stars,_ " I oathed, knowing it was me.

"Into the forest!" yelled Poe at the guards with us, and we bolted for the treeline across the gully.

Behind me I could hear the rush of transports landing and could only hope for more time before they got out. None of us spoke as we were wholly focused on our sprint to the trees; they were our only hope for cover and a chance to survive what was sure to be an onslaught from storm troopers. Despite our mad dash for the woods and our strained circumstances, I was overwhelmed by thoughts of Ben and that I had, perhaps, been betrayed.

It stung.

He didn't want to meet me covertly upon this planet. He wanted to destroy everyone I was with, to ruin the leadership of the Resistance, and to take this planet for his own. He'd taken my information I gave him, information given in confidence, and in what I thought was a mutual understanding, and he was using it against me. He was using it as a hand-hold to destroy the cause for which I fought. Is this how he hoped to bring us to terms? It was madness and it stung as if I'd been lashed. I couldn't believe it, and I couldn't believe how easily I'd been duped.

The sound of transport doors opening whished far behind us, up the hill from whence we'd run.

I blinked back blurriness in my eyes as we finally reached the forest and plunged into its depths. We didn't stop until we were deep within the woods and there, out of breath, Poe called us together.

He huffed once, then twice, and then began to speak, a unique intensity, an arrow-focus in his eyes.

"Comms, call for backup," he ordered, glancing at a comms soldier. "Until they get here, we need to stay alive and protect this planet from the FO. I don't know how they knew we'd be here, but they did."

I tried not to look guilty, all the while feeling immensely guilty and experiencing a certain type of rage begin to grow within me. It was the rage that comes from being scorned. I could hear the distant clicking march of storm troopers coming closer. I knew they'd seen us run into the forest, and it appeared as if it was us they were after.

Of course it was us. Kylo Ren knew General Poe would be with me. What a wonderful chance to get rid of the highest officer in the Resistance! I felt ill. I felt stupid. I felt as if I'd been a complete idiot, that Kylo Ren had used me, that he'd manipulated me into giving him what he wanted and now he was using it against me because it suited his purposes. I felt a hate building in my soul and I grabbed my lightsaber.

Poe's orders were simple; we would fight guerilla style within the trees. Storm troopers were ill suited for that kind of warfare, more seasoned for the battlefield than the forest, and it would, hopefully, confuse them enough until backup could arrive. But there was something Poe didn't know. When he finished giving orders, I touched his arm.

"Not now, Rey," he said, and then signaled for everyone to move out.

There were perhaps twenty-five of us against what sounded like a hundred storm troopers, but we were trained to fight with few against many and the Resistance soldiers melted away into the woods. I followed Poe, against his orders.

"Rey, what are you doing?" he hissed.

"Poe, I need to tell you," I whispered. "You should stay out of sight."

He stopped and looked at me.

"Why?" he inquired.

"I think its you they're after," I said.

His gaze narrowed upon me.

"Are you saying this was _planned_?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said. "I believe so."

"How do you know it was planned, Rey?" he asked me.

We were interrupted by a red laser rifle shot in the woods ahead. The first of the storm troopers were coming into the woods, and they seemed to be firing with abandon into the trees.

I grabbed Poe by the arm and dragged him with me deeper into the woods. It was fortunate that he went willingly, his resistance swallowed up by impending enemy fire. We ran until the rifle shots dimmed after we crossed a stream, and he stopped me, jarring in place, as if refusing to move another step away from the fight.

"Rey, I can't go any further," he said. "My men are fighting back there."

"I won't let you go just to die," I objected.

He drew a breath and let it out and fixed me with a determined gaze.

"Soon, you're going to tell me exactly how you know about all this," he said, pulling his laser pistol from its holster, "but for now, I'm going back, and you aren't going to stop me."

I would have tried to argue if it wasn't for the sound I heard close by in the woods. It was a sound I knew very well, the sound of a lightsaber being ignited, and not just any light saber; it was the lightsaber of Kylo Ren. The time for arguing with Poe was over. Now I had to save him.

I shoved Poe behind me and lit my lightsaber, relishing the vibrating hum that traveled through my hand at its ignition, and turned to face the woods, feeling through the Force for _him_ , and sensing him right away.

I watched him come through the trees with his stalksome gait, the madness of his unstable lightsaber clenched in his hand and his face hidden behind a crawling mask. He was the Shadow of Death, come to take what he believed was his, it seemed, but he wasn't going to have Poe, not while I still lived.

As he saw me, he stopped on the other side of the stream.

How could this be the man who I adored just yesterday? How could I have been so wrong? How could I have been so _stupid?_ Cruel tears pressed at my edges and I fought them back in anger.

"Rey," he said, his voice metallic and distant due to his mask's distortion.

Did he think he would simply greet me and I'd do the same?

"Traitor!" I yelled at him, allowing my fury at being betrayed to ignite along my seams.

There was something subtle in his posture which changed, as if his deathly pose drew back only a little.

Neither of us spoke for a moment filled with the sounds of the trickling stream, the deep, low tread of lightsabers, and distant rifle fire.

"I did not want to come," he said, his words having his trademark perfect enunciation, further augmented by his metallic mask. "I tried not to, but you persuaded me. Three times I tried to say no."

"What is he talking about?" I heard Poe ask behind me.

"You know this isn't what I wanted!" I cried.

"What did you expect?" he inquired, so infuriatingly calm. "That I would come unarmed and ask for the Resistance's mercy?"

He spoke it as if it were a joke, as if anything could be funny right now.

"You asked him to come here?" asked Poe, his disbelief palpable.

"If your general is removed from the Resistance, it only makes it easier for this war to end," said Kylo Ren. "And if this war ends… that leaves us where we want to be."

"You should have known this isn't what I want," I seethed, finding it difficult to breathe enough to sustain my rage. "How could you do this?"

"Perhaps you can't see it now," said Kylo Ren, "But you will."

"I will not," I objected.

"Now move aside," he said.

"No," I said, gripping my lightsaber.

"Rey," said Kylo Ren.

"I said _no!"_ I cried, launching into the stream, my lightsaber held high. I swung with all the strength I possessed, with all the rage he had filled me with, with all the hurt and betrayal and agonizing shame that coursed through me at that time.

Our lightsabers collided with cathartic tension and held, rapping of sound and energy in loops and feedback until he shoved me away and we parted, momentarily.

"Rey!" yelled Poe from behind me, and I heard his pistol fire.

I dodged to the side as Kylo Ren shoved the laser bullet with the Force, deflecting it into the gravel in the stream's edge. Using the Force, he yanked Poe's pistol from his hand and flung it across the stream and into the woods behind him. I knew what he was going to do next, he was going to try to kill Poe with the Force.

"No!" I yelled, bringing my saber around to strike at him so forcefully he had to give me his full attention.

We violently parleyed in the stream; we fought and danced in the water, though we scarcely noticed as it splashed beneath our labored steps and the drops which reached our sabers sizzled instantaneously into steam. Despite my rage, despite my anger and shame and betrayal and threatening tears, there was something satisfying about it, about releasing the fullness of my wrath upon Kylo Ren, and about the crushing, powerful madness of each crash between our lightsabers. I wanted to overcome him, I wanted to subdue him, I wanted to tear off his helmet and force him to kneel before me in subjugation. _And then…_

All at once he used the Force to surprise me, in a jerk of his hand he tripped my legs from underneath me and I fell back into the stream and my lightsaber extinguished as he towered over me, his unstable red flame of a saber pointed at my throat. I felt irony as it was I who became subjugated.

"Rey," he said, "let us end this war. It doesn't matter how. It doesn't matter who wins. It will be us, no matter what."

I shook my head, disbelieving his density.

"We must end it," he said.

"Then surrender," I said, though I wasn't in any position to demand surrender of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, with a blade at my neck. "Surrender to the Resistance and it will be over."

It was his turn to shake his head in disbelief at me.

"It is not so simple," said he. "The galaxy needs a strong power to control it, otherwise it will fall to chaos. Just like the planets the Resistance has 'freed'. They are all in a poor state of chaos."

"This one seems fine," I objected.

"You've hardly had a chance to look," he replied, glancing toward the direction of the settlement, away from the fighting.

Just then I noticed Poe far behind Kylo, a little away near the trees. He had moved with stealth while Kylo Ren was distracted by me and had retrieved his pistol. He winked at me and lifted his arm to aim at Kylo Ren.

I looked up at Kylo.

I'd like to think I acted out of instinct.

Maybe it was instinct in the Force, instinct as a person who is attached to another person, or instinct as one who always wants to preserve life no matter what, I didn't know. I think it was all three. I lifted my hand and stopped the blast in mid-air, holding it between Poe and Kylo Ren, immoveable. I don't know how I knew how to do it. I think it was instinct, again.

Poe's eyes widened, and he stared at me for a moment in confusion before betrayal set in.

Kylo turned like a lion, preparing to tear Poe apart with the Force.

"Stop!" I yelled, warning Kylo with a shift in the laser bolt I still held aloft and aimed at his heart.

Kylo stopped.

"Run, Poe!" I cried.

"No, Rey, I can't leave you with him," objected Poe.

"Shutup and run!" I yelled.

He ran, disappearing through the trees and towards the rifle fire in the woods.

When I was sure Poe was out of Kylo's reach, I sent the laser bolt into the ground.

Kylo's lightsaber extinguished.

We sat there for a moment, the stream trickling around us. It almost seemed silly, once we were alone, our previous mortal combat. How was everything so different when we were alone?

"You've been using the dark side of the Force, today," he said, his metallic voice articulating.

I stood, no longer threatened by his lightsaber blade. I was wet from the stream, cold, and miserable, and furious at Kylo Ren.

"Call off your forces," I demanded.

He just watched me.

"Call off your forces!" I demanded again.

"Why?" he said at last. "They're distracting yours."

"From what?" I asked.

"Us," he said.

I couldn't believe him. In frustration I fell upon his chest, his dense weight, pushing him back with my forearms and fists, away from me. Tears began to fall _en force_ at last.

He grasped my wrists in his hands and I let him. This wasn't how I thought today would go. It was all so wrong, so agonizingly wrong.

"If I call off my forces, yours will come after me," he said, as his helmet voice dehumanized him.

I reached forward and he allowed me to press the release on his mask, hating the thing, listening for the fall of pressure and lifting it from his face. All at once there was a difference, a vulnerability, an intimacy which emanated from Ben Solo. His eyes were deep and black, and his hair fell across his pale forehead. The faint part of his lips told me everything I needed to know. I threw his mask away, into the stream.

"I don't ever want to see that mask again," I said to him.

He watched me impassively, as if patient, and as if pleased to be in my presence, despite circumstances.

"Why did you do this, Ben?" I asked him. "Why did it have to be this way? Couldn't you have done this differently, in a way that didn't involve the deaths of my friends?"

"We are at war, Rey," he said. "I can't simply walk onto a planet held by the enemy to see you."

"Haven't you ever heard of covert operations?" I asked.

"Besides," he said, ignoring me, "it was too good of an opportunity to pass up."

"I can't believe you would betray my trust like this!" I cried.

"Wouldn't you do the same, if I told you exactly where General Hux would be on any given day? If you knew he would be in a place with little protection and could be easily overcome?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be your _duty_ to your _cause_ to take advantage of that?"

I paused to consider, not realizing that there might be some truth to what he said.

"Would you not be a traitor to your own cause if you _didn't_?" he asked me.

I wiped an angry tear of frustration from my cheek.

"You could have told me this would happen if you came," I said.

"I could have, though I assumed you knew the implications of your admission," he said.

"How could I?" I asked him. "I thought we'd reached… an understanding."

He fell silent.

"But I was wrong," I said, feeling bitterness rise in me.

"No, you weren't," he said, and I looked up at him. "I've already endangered my position for you."

He glanced beside him, towards the forest where the rifle fire went on in the distance.

"Does this seem like an operation worthy of the Supreme Leader of the First Order?" he asked. "A small attack on a backwater planet chasing after a few rebels?"

"I don't know," I said, placing my hand on my hip and feeling defensive. "I'm not the Supreme Leader of the First Order."

"Don't you think General Hux might find my behavior a little bit erratic?" he asked. "Or even compromised?"

"I don't know," I repeated, feeling like an obstinate child as I glanced down at the water flowing between us.

"Do you know how badly Hux wants my head on a pike?" he asked me, intent with purpose.

I lifted my gaze to him. I didn't know.

"I did this, all of this, for you," he said, then, glancing down over me as if he couldn't believe it himself, "For _you_."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted.

"I did it in what I could surmise would be the least compromising way," he said. "Maybe, if the Resistance's best general was at stake, my presence could be considered reasonable. Probably not, but at least there is a thread of usefulness to me being on this nowhere planet."

I glanced around at the nowhere planet upon which we stood.

"I suppose it was more than I should have hoped for that you would have discerned this already," he said, his gaze intent upon me, "but it appears that I was wrong."

"Yes, you were wrong," I said, anger still suffusing me.

"This isn't what I'd hoped for," he said, his gaze softening.

I wanted to cry again, the frustration he caused me was beyond comprehension.

"But it's enough to see you," he said. "Enough to spur me to want this war to end more quickly."

"End it today," I replied.

"I can't," he said, and as I looked up at him, I knew he believed that to be true. He actually appeared to be a little helpless. I saw he wanted to end it, he wanted the war over and done with. So did I.

How was it that two people who wanted the same thing in the future couldn't manage to come to terms in the present?

"Ben," I said, and I reached up and touched his face. It was an olive branch which he fell into, turning his face into the palm of my hand to plant a chaotic kiss there.

To touch him in reality was so much greater than through our Force connection. There was nothing stopping the Force between us from mingling and reacting, like chemistry sparked alight in the air and consuming us both. I was at once drawn in, pulled as if by some unseen force, magnetic, intense with gravity. My arms fell around his shoulders and we kissed madly, as if we were the release of pent up solar energies after eons of buildup. At the end of the kiss we were panting, our lips close, intimate. I again felt the desire for the rest of the galaxy to go away and leave us be.

"Ben," I whispered against his mouth. He inhaled softly at the touch.

"Yes?" he inquired with his own whisper.

"Let's end this war," I sighed.

He kissed me again, insatiable.

"But for now," I whispered at the end of his kiss, "call off your troops. Leave this planet."

His hands tightened around my waist as if he didn't want to let me go. I didn't want him to let me go, either, but I knew he had to.

Touching his face, I looked up into his eyes. He adored me. He _adored_ me. I didn't know what I was going to do with Ben Solo. He was such a conundrum.

I touched his hands, pulling them gently from around my waist and keeping eye contact with him, to assure him, as well as to gaze into his pretty eyes for as long as I was able.

"We will work together, you and I," I said. "We will find a compromise. We will end this war."

His adoration seemed to increase as I said that, and he touched my face with delicate precision. His thumb fell, faint, across my lips, the promise of wanting more in his eyes.

"Rey," he breathed, short, filled with intensity.

I turned to find his helmet, looking like another rock in the stream, with clear water flowing over and around it, and I picked it up. Dripping, I handed it to him.

He held it for a moment, and then placed it on his head, masking his humanity. I felt a light go out. I sighed and looked away.

Kylo Ren pushed a comms button on his wrist and spoke into it, his voice robotic, precise, inhuman.

"General Poe isn't here. Move out to the transports."

He might have looked at me, but I kept my gaze elsewhere. I didn't want to see him as Kylo Ren anymore. After a moment, he turned and ran from the stream and then he faded silently, like a shadow, into the forest, away from me and back into the First Order.

It was then that it sunk in that he'd spared Poe for my sake.

Was there hope for Ben Solo?

I gazed at the forest, wondering and hoping for the future.

-ooOOoo-


	7. Force Bond F

-VII-

The ride home with Poe was laced with an icy silence, one I didn't want to breach and that perhaps Poe didn't know _how_ to breach, at least not yet. As we sat near each other on the transport bench I could see he was tense and avoiding eye contact. I suppose he didn't want to talk about it in front of the other soldiers. I could appreciate the wisdom in that.

He was the least jovial that I'd ever seen him. I could see he was itching to say something to me, but he couldn't, so instead he brooded. His brooding put everyone on the transport in an uncomfortable silence, for it was so unusual for Poe to behave this way. I spent the rest of the ride home staring out of a window, wondering if there would be any way to make him understand what was happening between Kylo Ren and I. I concluded that there probably wasn't. He didn't understand the Force. He'd never understand the connection I shared with the Supreme Leader of the First Order. He would see it as madness, as traitorous, as despicable.

I could sense he was waiting to investigate before he cast judgment, but I wasn't sure an explanation would avert the judgment I felt was inevitable.

Finally, we arrived back on the Resistance base and Poe ordered his men to the barracks to refresh. I tried to remain inconspicuous as I turned towards the Jedi training camp, but he stopped me.

"Rey," he said, and I turned to look at him. He looked tired. I wasn't looking forward to this. "We need to talk."

"I suppose we do," I replied.

He led me into a conference room within the base, one which was empty except for a console in the middle around which planning members could view holos. He shut the door.

It took him a moment to face me, but when he did, he looked as if he didn't want to face me.

"Rey," he said, "would you care to explain what I've just overheard between you and Kylo Ren?"

"I'll explain," I said, feeling as if I couldn't fully commit, "but I don't think you'll understand."

"Perhaps not," replied Poe, "but please. Do it anyway."

I looked over him, wondering how much to tell and how to tell it. It wasn't that I didn't want to be honest, it was that I wanted to tell that which would be most comprehensible for him.

"Kylo Ren and I have a… bond," I said, and seeing Poe's confused face I added: "Through the Force."

"What do you mean a bond?" he asked.

"I mean we can communicate through the Force despite being in disparate locations," I replied.

"How long have you had this bond with Kylo Ren?" he asked.

"For… as long as I've known you," I said.

" _What_?" asked Poe in disbelief. "You mean you've been communicating with him all of this time? All this time we've been at war… with _him_?"

"We're not at war with _him,_ " I said.

"Yes we are," he replied.

"No, we're not," I insisted. "We're at war with the First Order."

"Which he leads," said Poe, looking as if this was clear and obvious.

"He does," I agreed, "but only because he thinks the galaxy needs the First Order."

"Which is a thing I assume all First Order members believe," said Poe, spreading his hands. "What does this tell me that I don't already know?"

"It's more nuanced than that," I said.

"Does he want the First Order to win?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Then he is our enemy," said Poe.

"But he only wants the First Order to win because he thinks it will create the most stability in the galaxy," I said. "He truly believes that. Trust me, we've argued about it… a lot."

Poe sighed and looked down, as if he wondered what to do with me. Glancing back up at me, he went on.

"Rey," he said, fixing me with the gaze he gets when he's intent on something, "Do you not realize you've been colluding with the enemy for… for as long as you've known me?"

I paused for a moment.

"Yes, I do," I said quietly. "But I have been loyal to the Resistance."

"How?" he demanded. "How is letting the leader of the FO know where I am going to be in any way loyal to the Resistance?"

"I didn't know he would do that!" I objected.

"Why did you tell him where we were going to be?" he asked.

"He wanted to see me… in person," I replied.

"You trust him enough to do that?" he asked in disbelief.

I hesitated a moment before saying, "Yes."

Poe's gaze wandered over my face, as if trying to figure me out, and I tried not to allow heat to suffuse my cheeks.

"Why did he want to see you in person?" inquired Poe, as if a suspicion was forming in his mind.

I glanced away.

"Oh, Rey," said Poe as his suspicion grew but his mind tried to reject it. "Rey…"

I shook my head.

"Tell me I'm wrong," said Poe. "Tell me its impossible. Will you? I'm asking you to tell me it isn't true, it can't be."

I heard his breath grow shorter beside me.

"Rey!" he said, harsh, tired of waiting for my reply.

I looked at him. Fine, he would have it. I suppose it would do better than to try and deny it. I lifted my chin and the fear and frustration on his face shifted, turning into a soft vulnerability.

"He and I have a bond in more than one way," I said. "We understand each other in a way no one else can. We care about each other, and we share the same desires for the future."

Poe opened his mouth to object, but I went on before he could.

" _Those desires are_ ," I insisted, "that this war ends, and that we reform the Jedi order together."

He appeared awash in the depths of processing what I'd just revealed, but there was a particular hurt which was woven in his eyes, though it could have only been noticed with the eye of one who knows him well.

"What we can't agree on," I went on, "is how the war should be ended. He thinks the Resistance should be overcome, and I believe he should surrender."

Poe leant against the frame of the closed door and drew a breath, letting it out.

"If you've had contact with him all these… these months, even more than a year… why didn't you ever tell anyone?" he asked.

"Because of this," I said, waving a hand. "Because you feel betrayed, don't you? You think I've betrayed the Resistance. It's… it's hard being a Force user, Poe. No one understands me."

"But you've never given me the opportunity to _try_ ," he said to me.

I shook my head and leaned back onto the other side of the frame, facing into the room. I let my gaze settle on the console, though only because it was there.

"Leia understood me," I said, missing her acutely in that moment. "I think she even knew I had a bond with Kylo Ren… _with her son_. Same as what she had with her brother. She knew the signs, and she knew the Force was greater than all this, all these wars. It transcends it."

"Don't the lives of all the people who die in the wars matter or is it all just nothing compared to your Force bonds?" demanded Poe, perhaps frustrated by his condition.

"Of course they matter," I said, feeling offended by his line of reasoning. "Why do you think I'm here and not there, with Kylo Ren?"

"I truly don't know," he said. "It seems as if you love him."

I scoffed, though his words cut me to the bone.

"Although perhaps that is more proof of my lack of understanding of Force users," he said, something fatalistic in his voice. "What am I to be, then? A pawn in the games of those who use the Force? Is that the role to which I am relegated?"

"Stars, no, Poe!" I objected. "What are you talking about? You're working towards the freedom of the galaxy, for the lifting of the oppression of the First Order, for the good of everyone!"

"Am I?" he asked me, his words quick, faint, almost as if he truly wondered. How could he wonder such a thing?

"Poe…," I said, taking his arm with my hand. He was pliant as he gazed at me, waiting for something, perhaps for proof that he wasn't wrong, for proof that I wasn't a traitor, for proof of anything that had now been put under scrutiny.

It wasn't my intention to look into him with the Force, I wasn't trying to do so. I tried to respect others' minds and keep out of them. It wasn't something that occurred to me to do, ever, but somehow it happened. Perhaps it was our closeness in that moment, and perhaps it was his vulnerability, but I saw into him at that moment. I saw _through_ him. I saw that he was scared, that things weren't going well, that the Resistance was in over its head, that it was stretched thin, that it was inexperienced and as a result poorly managed. I saw the problems which mounted upon him, ever more every day, which had been hidden behind his trademark bravado. He was falling apart and cracking at the seams and didn't know how the Resistance was going to avoid crumbling for another day.

I felt terrible at once, I felt deep, agonizing empathy, and I touched his face.

Ben had been right all along.

"Poe…" I said, deeply sorry.

He sucked in a breath and pulled back, away from me, as if burned.

"How dare you," he said, affronted, hurt, betrayed.

"It was an accident," I said, helpless. "I didn't mean to."

"You _are_ a traitor," he said.

"No, Poe," I said, "please… I wasn't trying to see what I saw."

"You are no longer part of the Resistance," he said, cold at once.

"Poe!" I objected. "Think about what you're saying!"

"I will give you a _very_ generous offer, and you should carefully consider taking me up on it, because, if you refuse, the next 'offer' will be far less pleasant," he said. "You and your Force users will leave this base and go elsewhere. I don't care where. As you mentioned today, you're not even training them to fight for us, so it should work out better for both of us."

I felt tears stinging at my edges.

"You don't belong in this war," he said.

I didn't know what to say. I had felt like the Resistance was family. I felt a tear fall as Poe's face softened a little as he looked at me.

"It is your friendship that stops me from giving you what your punishment should be," he said. "You are a traitor. If the Resistance as a whole knew what you've done, they'd have you shot for treason, but I will keep it to myself. I'll keep your secrets, Rey."

I wiped the wetness from my face and glanced aside.

"You couldn't stay and continue to enjoy the freedom you've had anyway," he said, as if reasoning with me. "How could I give you access to comms, to weapons, to troops, or to transports? It would be impossible. I can't even let you know any information because it might end up in the hands of Kylo Ren."

"I know," I said, tears still assaulting me, "but you can't go on like this, Poe. How long can you last? How many people have to die?"

"How can I ever surrender to the First Order?" he asked.

I knew he couldn't, not like this. Not when the First Order was like it was. A genesis of an idea began to form in my mind.

"Poe… what if I work with Kylo Ren to reform the FO from inside?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Are you going to join the FO?"

"Never," I said.

"Then what?" he asked.

I considered. Maybe it was just a crazy idea, but maybe it would work. Maybe it would lead to an end to this war, and that's what we all wanted, wasn't it? For now, however, I decided to keep it to myself.

"I'll keep you posted," I said to him, meaning it. "You may be kicking me out of the Resistance, but you can always know I'm your ally."

He gave me a soft exhale, as if wondering what to do with me.

"I'll tell my padawans and we will move out as soon as possible, as soon as I figure out where to go," I said.

He gave a nod.

"Okay," he said.

"Thank you, Poe," I said. "Thanks for showing mercy."

"I had to," he said to me.

I smiled at him, understanding him more than I ever had. I liked him better, behind the bravado.

"I won't let you regret it," I said.

-o—o—o—o-

I was sitting on a bench, gazing out of a transport window into the unknown blackness of space when I saw him again. I felt him coming, first, slowly, like bleeding into being as I recognized the unique signature of him before he came into view. It was as if he sat on the nearest bench, as if he could gaze out of the next window nearby.

He was dark and his eyes fixed upon me and stayed there. I watched his pale face, brightened by the starlight and darkened by the shadow of the poorly lit transport.

My padawans were all around nearby and would know if I spoke, so I didn't. He seemed to know I couldn't talk right then.

I watched him stand and move closer to me, and I wondered what he was about. He sat beside me and I broke our gaze and tried to focus on the window. I felt his fingers touch my hand.

I shivered involuntarily.

I could sense him feeling for me in the Force as his fingers trailed along my skin, and I began to fight to keep my breath calm. I stood all at once.

The nearest padawan looked at me curiously.

"I'll be in the 'fresher," I managed, and I rushed towards the small room in the back of the transport and, once I'd gained access, shut and locked the door. It was scarcely big enough for me to stand with my arms outstretched, but he followed me.

"What do you think you're doing?" I chided him.

He didn't listen, though, or perhaps he didn't think it was worth answering because we both already knew. He took me into his arms and kissed me and I surrendered immediately, hopelessly, falling against the back of the fresher, where an outstanding fresher fixture hit me square in the back.

"Ow!" I yelped before I could think, and he jumped at once, pulling back.

I didn't like that, though, so I took him into _my_ arms and pushed him into the corner and gave him a piece of my mind. Except I kissed him. A lot. He, to his credit, also surrendered immediately, with no hope of rescue.

After time, I felt as if he were adequately mussed and I turned to words.

"Ben," I said, brushing his hair languidly, adoringly from his face, "don't embarrass me in front of my padawans."

"I couldn't stop myself," he replied, lifting my chin thoughtfully, as if considering where to kiss me next.

"We do have something to talk about, you know," I said.

"Do we?" he mused, and then he fell upon my neck.

I leaned back against the wall and allowed it, relishing the pressure of him, his weight against me, his hands upon me. I sighed and ran my hands into his hair at the nape of his neck.

"Do you think we could reform the First Order?" I asked, cutting right to it.

He froze, his hands, his mouth, all of him. Pulling back, he looked at me with a cautious, almost suspicious expression.

"A lot of things have happened, Ben," I said.

"What has happened?" he inquired.

I told him about Poe, about finding out about him, about our bond, and about the exile upon which I was embarking with my padawans.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Where else can we go?" I asked. "Ahch-To."

"No," he said, shaking his head at me. "Don't go there."

"Where better to train my-," I began, but he cut me off.

"Come to me," he said, almost pleading.

"I can't do that!" I cried.

"Please," he said.

"What a horrible idea," I said, looking away. "We'd be… exterminated."

"I'm the Supreme Leader!" he cried, as if frustrated all at once. "I will forbid it!"

"You're one man," I said, glancing over him.

"Rey," he said, taking my arms in his hands. Intensity roiled off him in waves. "Come to me. Nothing will touch you as long as I live-,"

It was my turn to cut him off.

"And how long would they let you live, knowing that you're colluding with me?" I asked, perhaps more sharply than I intended.

He looked hurt for some reason.

"The First Order is full of wolves, and they aren't the forgiving sort. I was lucky with Poe, Ben, but you won't be," I said.

He released me, and rose to his height, cold at once.

"I don't need you to defend me," he stated.

I didn't know what we were arguing about anymore.

"I don't want to endanger you, regardless!" I replied, feeling my own frustrations creeping in.

"I need you," he said, but he said it so softly and so brokenly I could barely hear it, almost as if he didn't want it heard, but he couldn't keep it hidden within him anymore. A raw vulnerability tumbled across his face but was pulled back, smoothed away, and veneered almost immediately after.

I wanted to fall out of the stars at that moment and take him with me.

I reached out and placed my palm over his chest, over his beating heart which beat so hot and with such intensity I wanted to reach in and still it, to calm it, but to possess it at the same time.

His hand came up over my own.

"Do you want to reform the First Order with me?" he asked.

I blinked.

"Y-yes," I replied.

"I will do anything for you," he said, his voice fallen to a rough whisper.

I don't know why I wanted to cry.

"Come to me at Ahch-To," I said.

"I cannot," he said, a melancholy in his gaze.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Ahch-To is in the middle of nowhere, and a known Jedi temple," he said, as if I should know this, "And the last known whereabouts of Luke Skywalker! How can I go there? Could you have gone anywhere further from me? Could you have gone anywhere in the galaxy more difficult for me to get to see you again?"

"That wasn't my intent!" I replied.

"It is what it is," he said, as if his hands were washed of the matter.

"I can't bring these padawans into danger, Ben," I said. "I can't bring them into the knowledge of the First Order."

"You know I am the Supreme Leader," he said.

"What would General Hux think?" I asked. "What would he do? What would he think about you? What would he cause to happen? What dissent would build in the ranks?"

He paused, then, because he knew I was right in this.

Out of frustration, and perhaps desperation, he embraced me and pitted me against the back of the fresher. He kissed me in a way I could only describe as laced with sorrow.

"I miss you," he whispered to me.

"I miss you, too," I replied, meaning it to my bones.

A knock came on the door of the fresher and we both jumped in alarm, broken out of our joined reverie by the most basic of things.

"Just a minute," I called, and then I trained my eyes upward, onto Ben.

The way he looked at me told me everything I needed to know. I touched his face.

"I have to go," I whispered to him as softly as I could.

He kissed me again, a brief thing, and then stepped aside, away, removing his scent and his mass and his Force from me. I always mourned that loss, like losing a coat on a cold day.

I unlocked and opened the door back into the real world and smiled at my padawan.

"Sorry," I said, and moved back into the main room, retaking my seat to gaze out upon the stars.

Ben sat beside me until the Force pulled us apart.

-o-O-o-


End file.
